


Solo Virtuoso

by Vae



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:55:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vae/pseuds/Vae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam Lambert, rising star of the LA music theatre scene, doesn't get much chance to meet potential boyfriends. Performing six nights a week limits the possibilities for socialising so when his friend Alisan suggests he try a lunchtime speed-dating event, it seems like the solution to his problems. Musician Kris Allen, at the same event because he lost a bet, appears perfect for Adam. Cute and confident, there's only one snag: once bitten, twice shy, Kris has decided that he doesn't want to have sex with other people.</p><p>Kris has a few things to teach Adam about the kinds of solo fun to be had with sex toys, but can Adam convince Kris to change his mind and take another try at the joys of sex with a loving partner?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sorchasilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorchasilver/gifts).



"You really don't need a partner to have amazing sex," Kris says confidently, and Adam nearly chokes on his margarita.

~~

Adam didn't really get much chance to meet guys to actually talk to. Working evenings meant he had the day free, but the social scene happened when he was at work. The only other option was fucking around in the cast, and he'd seen the fallout drama of that one way too many times to risk trying it. Clubs were still open after the curtain came down, but he’d never done much talking in clubs.

"You're not going to find a boyfriend in a club," Cassidy told him. "You don't even get _names_ in clubs."

Okay, true. He wasn't arguing with that. The guys he fucked in clubs didn't usually get his name either, and he didn't use to care whose name they gasped out when they came. He usually couldn't hear it, anyway.

"I'm gonna die old and alone." He stared morosely into his coffee. His skinny, decaf, soy-milk coffee. Brad was getting to him. "I might as well become a monk."

"Do they even have Jewish monks?" Brad asked, dropping onto his lap. "I mean, don't monks have to be Christians?"

It wasn't something Adam had ever researched, but it sounded probable. "Old and alone," he repeated. "I can't even become a fucking _monk_."

Brad patted his hair. "Monks don't fuck, honey."

Adam's forehead hit the table.

~~

"So," Adam says, once he's blotted the tears from choking because streaked eyeliner isn't a good look on anyone. "Seriously? You don't have sex?"

Kris laughs (and it's really unfairly adorable). "Man, I _have_ sex. I just don't need anyone else to be there."

~~

Brad wasn't the last person Adam had dated. He was just the person Adam had dated for longest, or maybe the person who'd dated Adam the longest, he wasn't sure which way around it was. Maybe both. His longest relationship, anyway.

Past relationship.

"You," Braid said firmly, peeling cucumber slices from his eyes to stare accusingly at Adam, "are seriously damaging my sparkle. This is not sparkle-positive behavior. Love yourself, honey, you know that has to come first."

"I do love myself," Adam protested. Obviously he loved himself, or he wouldn't be spending time on spa treatments with Brad. "I'd just love myself more if I wasn't, you know, alone."

"Bitch, what am I, chopped liver?"

Adam threw one of the cucumber slices he was still holding in Brad's direction.

He missed.

~~

"Toys?" Adam asks, managing to remember to lower his voice and not quite managing to stop himself from imagining tiny, adorable Kris on his hands and knees, eyes closed, spine slightly arched with tension, skin sheened with sweat, panting softly as a fucking machine drilled his ass.

Tiny, adorable, seriously hot Kris.

"Sometimes, yeah." Kris grins, and Adam's pretty sure his eyes glaze over. Possibly they also cross.

~~

Alisan pushed a flyer into Adam's hand, kissed his cheek, and dropped onto the couch next to him, looking ridiculously pleased with herself. "It's the answer."

Since Alisan's last 'answer' had involved homeopathy and the one before that had ended up with both of them in a god-awful musical with Val Kilmer and way too many waxed, oiled chests and male nipples on display for any place except WeHo on a weekend, Adam was cautious about unfolding the paper. "The answer to what?"

"You're not gonna end up miserable and alone." She patted his hand and bounced up again. "I need coffee. You need coffee. _Read_ it, pumpkin."

Although the idea of Alisan getting any more hyper was kind of terrifying, Adam dutifully read.

~~

"What about dating, though, do you still date?" Adam misses dating. He likes dating. He likes sex, too, a lot, but he also likes dating and all the little rituals of it.

Kris shrugs. "Not really? I've got my friends, I've got some really good friends, we do stuff together, it's cool."

"But not sex stuff," Adam checks.

"They're my _friends_ , dude."

Adam figures that it's probably not the best time to mention that he does, on drunken occasion, have sex with his friends.

~~

It took nearly ten minutes for Brad to stop laughing when Adam told him Alisan's solution to the not-becoming-a-monk thing. Cassidy wasn't much better.

"Speed dating?" Cassidy asked, clearly not believing a word of it. Brad was still giggling helplessly. "Seriously, Adam? You think you're gonna find a soul mate by selling yourself in three minutes?"

Adam scrubbed a hand through his hair and remembered he needed to color his roots again. "They've got three minutes to sell themselves to me, too. And then the next day you find out who wants your number."

"You. _You're_ gonna go speed dating." Brad bit his lip, completely failing to stop the gleeful grin. "What happened to romance?"

And okay, so speed dating did feel kind of desperate, but plenty of people did it, right? "Sometimes romance needs a helping hand," Adam said defensively.

"In three minutes," Brad and Cassidy chorused, looked at each other, and dissolved into laughter again.

Adam had to admit that there was no way he could miss the innuendo in that one.

~~

"So if you're not looking for a date..." Adam takes a fortifying sip of his cocktail and sets it down again. "I mean, you're not looking for someone to have sex with, you don't really date..."

"I kind of lost a bet," Kris admits. His fingers are rubbing against the side of his glass in a really fucking distracting manner, fingertips sliding on condensation, and Adam can't help sneaking looks at them and picturing them rubbing against other things. Like his cock, for preference. "And I figured what the heck, right? I could make some new friends, too."

Adam drags his gaze away from Kris's fingers and back to his face. Kris is looking at him, head tilted slightly to one side, smiling warmly and with his eyes all kind of soft.

He's so completely Adam's type that it's not even funny. Apart from the not-having-sex bit.

~~

Adam made sure - twice - that the speed dating event was actually a gay speed dating event. It wasn't so much that he didn't want to waste his time, though that was a factor. It was more that he didn't want to waste anyone else's time, and he wasn't so far from loving himself that he didn't have confidence that he'd come away with at least one number to follow up on.

"You're actually gonna do this." Brad folded his legs into lotus position, sitting in the middle of Adam's bed. "You're giving in to the heteronormative bullshit of relationships enough to actually go to a speed dating event in a pathetic attempt to try to get into one."

Adam blew on his nails, willing the polish to dry faster. "You didn't bitch so much about heteronormative bullshit when we were _in_ a relationship together, princess."

"Because we were in a relationship for the right reasons," Brad said, sounding unusually rational. "Not because we were afraid of being alone."

"I'm not afraid of being alone," Adam insisted, waving his fingers in the air and checking the time again. "I'm just ready to not be alone."

"But you're not in love with anyone. There's no actual specific individual person you want to be not alone _with_." Brad unfolded himself and came across to stand behind Adam’s chair, meeting his eyes in the dressing-table mirror. "I just don't wanna see you get hurt here."

Adam leaned against Brad for a moment, closing his eyes and soaking in the warmth of the thin body against his back. "It's one lunchtime. Three minutes per guy. How's that gonna hurt?"

"You can't manufacture love," Brad said gently. "You really can't force it in three minutes. It's out there for you. The universe will bring you to the right guy when it's the right time."

Adam reached back blindly for Brad's hand, lacing their fingers together, trusting his nail polish to have dried enough not to smudge. "Maybe I'm just giving the universe a few more opportunities."

~~

The buzzer sounds and Adam looks up, startled. "That was so not three minutes."

"Can't argue with the alarm, man." Kris's smile warms to a grin, and he stands up, holding out his hand. "Guess that's my cue to move on."

Adam takes Kris's hand, resisting the urge to ask Kris to stay longer because that's not how this thing works. "I guess so," he agrees, grinning back, and pauses as he notices the light catching a mark on the side of Kris's throat, only visible because of the changed angle. "You're a musician?"

It's Kris's turn to be startled, judging by the sudden widening of his eyes. "Yeah. How...?"

"Unless you're more flexible than anyone I ever met, you didn't give yourself that mark, honey." He stands, slowly, reaching out to trace his fingers lightly over the mark, feeling Kris's pulse flutter gratifyingly under his fingertips, feeling Kris's voicebox move as Kris swallows. Reluctantly, Adam lowers his hand from Kris's neck and lets go of the not-quite-handshake, warmth lingering as the contact breaks. "So unless the no sex thing is way more recent than you've led me to believe... violin?"

Kris shakes his head, tucking his hand into his pocket and backing up half a step, away from the table, out of Adam's reach. There's a faint flush coloring his throat, making the mark harder to see. "It's not from sex, and I don't play violin. Close, though."

Then he's gone.

~~

The first few guys Adam talked to made him wonder if Brad had been right after all. None of them seemed to be psychopaths, which he'd been kind of apprehensive about, but they didn't seem to be anything special, either. Sandy blended into Fred blended into Jack blended into Mark, alternating between guys who sat down opposite him and guys he sat down opposite. Office workers and baristas, doctors and real estate agents, until he sat down opposite Kris and the afternoon blurred into sharp focus.

~~

"Mr...?" The blonde girl with the paperwork and the awesome tattoo sleeve looks up at Adam expectantly.

"Lambert," he supplies, trying to cover the hint of anxiety with an easy, professional smile. There's got to be some way he can track Kris down, but he's going to be a lot happier if Kris wants to be tracked down.

"Lambert," she repeats, flicking through papers, and holding a sheet out to him with a smile. "Six numbers. Good luck!"

He thanks her, manages not to grab at the piece of paper, and turns away to unfold it. Six numbers, and only one he's actually interested in.

It's there.

He lets out a soft whoop of triumph, tugs his phone out, and manages to make it back out to the street before calling. There's no thought of playing games or calculating how long he should wait before calling, because he doesn't want to wait. He just wants to get to talk to Kris some more.

~~

So Adam hasn't actually _talked_ to Kris. He's talked to Kris' voicemail a couple of times, but Kris hasn't called back. There's got to be a good reason for it, because Kris had agreed to give Adam his number. That has to mean that Kris wants him to call, right?

"Maybe you said something stupid on the voicemail," Brad suggests brightly.

Cassidy throws a pillow at Brad. "You saw this guy for three minutes, Adam."

"But we _connected_." Or Adam had, anyway. Maybe Kris hadn't.

"In three minutes?" Brad sounds skeptical.

Adam sighs. "In more like thirty seconds, actually. Plus he's really cute. And he's a musician."

"We know," Cassidy says dryly. "You've told us."

"And that he's not into sex," Brad adds. "Why are you even interested? No sex! You love sex!"

"He probably hasn't had sex with the right person yet," Adam says firmly. "Oh, fuck you. Fuck you _both_. I'm not that funny."

~~

"Leave it after the beep!"

"Hi, uh, Adam? This is Kris, from the ... thing. The thing that lunchtime at the bar? There was... anyway, I had to go out of town for a few days, but if you still wanna meet up, give me a call?"

~~

Adam figures that Kris isn't really the franchise coffee shop type, which means that the cafe they end up meeting in isn't the kind of place Adam would usually be. It's nice enough; the cakes are way too tempting and dangerous to the fit of his costume but the coffee's good and they get a quiet table tucked in a corner, semi-private.

Kris somehow manages to look even better in natural light. Kind of wholesome. Instead of the distractingly snug black shirt, there's a plaid shirt that looks like Kris has had it for years, and jeans that aren't anywhere near tight enough to let Adam ogle Kris's ass in the few seconds he gets before they sit down. There's something just comfortable about him. Like cookies and milk.

Oatmeal cookies, Adam decides, as Kris lifts a hand to rub at the back of his neck. With spices. Something sweet. Maybe cinnamon. Or maybe he's getting distracted by the pastry that Kris is tearing a piece off.

Kris looks up, catches him watching, and smiles. "You're sure you don't want some?"

"I'm sure I do," Adam admits. "I'm not gonna have any, though. I'll just watch you enjoy it."

"That's kind of creepy," Kris says cheerfully and eats the piece anyway, licking crumbs and glaze from his fingers.

"Vicarious enjoyment is totally valid." Adam grins at the sight of Kris's tongue and doesn't even pretend not to be thinking of it in other, more fun places. "And has less calories. You don't work days?"

Kris shakes his head, tearing off another piece. "Some afternoons, mostly evenings. How about you? Day off?"

"Same, actually." Which is pretty cool, since it means their schedules aren't going to clash. "I'm an actor."

"Yeah?" Kris says, head tilting in a way Adam's beginning to associate with interest. "What are you in?"

He's glad he's actually got an answer for once, because he knows he sucks at the office admin he ends up doing to pay rent when he's not working. "Right now? _Wicked_. I'm an understudy."

"So you only go on when someone's sick?" Kris wraps his hands around his coffee mug in a way that makes Adam remember him holding his glass back in the bar.

"Not just then, no." He tastes his own coffee, a cautious sip in case it's still scalding hot. "I mean, yeah, but the rest of the time I'm in the chorus and I usually go on for Fiyero at least once a week. The leads get these contracts where they only have to do six performances a week, even though we do eight, so..."

"So you get to go on enough not to get bored," Kris completes, nodding. "That's cool."

"I don't get bored when I'm in the chorus," he protests. "Not really. It's just a different sort of challenge. How about you?"

"I'm not an understudy," Kris says with a completely straight face.

It takes Adam a moment to catch on and he ducks his head on a laugh. "Okay, got it. You could just say that you don't wanna tell me."

"You'll find out sometime," Kris says. It sounds like he knows that, believes it with his whole heart. Like he's not playing games.

"I'd just like to know something about you apart from that you don't have sex with other people." He pauses, a sickening thought occurring. "You _are_ gay, right?"

Kris laughs, warm enough that Adam would swear he can feel it wrapping around his shoulders. "Bi, but yeah, I like guys."

It's not quite as good as gay, because it widens his competition to a much bigger swathe of the population, but Adam will take that. It's a hundred times better than straight. "Except for sex."

"I'm not having sex with women, either." The laugh's gone. "Why's it such a big deal for you?"

Adam blinks. He's pretty sure Kris is serious, but... "How is it not a big deal? You're choosing not to have sex!"

"Adam." Kris leans towards him slightly, hands still holding his mug. "Can you listen for a moment?"

Sure, he can listen. It means he's going to get something to listen _to_. "Sure thing, honey."

Kris pauses. "Honey?"

"Baby?" Adam tries. "Sweetheart? Pumpkin?"

Smiling, Kris shakes his head. "Just Kris."

"Kris, then." For now, anyway. "I can listen."

"Okay, then." Kris takes a sip of coffee, visibly gathering himself. "It's... just over a year ago, I got divorced."

"Divorced?" Adam interrupts before he can stop himself. "Seriously? Are you even old enough to get married?"

"You said you'd listen," Kris says gently. His hands are still around his mug, fingers tight enough that his knuckles are pale. "So listen."

Adam looks at Kris's hands, then his face, and nods. "I'm listening."

Kris nods, keeping his eyes on Adam's face. "We were friends first," he says simply. "She was my best friend. I told her everything, she told me everything, we did everything together. So we started dating, and we started having sex, and we got married."

It sounds idyllic. It sounds domestic and, Adam has to admit, kind of awesome. He doesn't care that some of his friends would dismiss it as boring, but that kind of intimacy, that kind of trust? He's wanted that for as long as he can remember. (He blames an overdose of Disney movies in his formative years and a not-so-secret wish to be Princess Jasmine. Those gauze harem pants were _awesome_.)

"And then it started to go wrong," Kris says, more quietly. "And I miss my friend more than anything else."

There has to be a lot more to it than that, more detail, but given that he's managed to talk to Kris for a grand total of thirteen minutes now, he's not about to push for more detail yet. Maybe after an hour. "I'm sorry," he says softly, and holds a hand out across the table.

After a moment of hesitation, Kris reaches out and takes it. "It's just not worth losing friendship for. I don't need someone else to have a great sex life, and I've got really good friends to talk to."

Adam squeezes Kris's hand gently. "How long were you guys together?"

"Eight years." There's something in Kris's tone, not exactly... Adam's not even sure what it is. "Since high school."

That says a lot more than Kris probably thinks it does, about shared experiences and being together through so many life changes. "Man, that's amazing," Adam says honestly. "Eight years together, that's impressive. That's longer than my parents had."

Kris looks up at him, eyes dark and slightly wide. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Adam confirms, resisting the urge to lean across the table and kiss Kris because, fuck, temptation right there and only the fact that he's holding Kris's hand is combating the instinct to get close enough for a hug. "Six years, two kids... they're friends now but I remember it being pretty rough when I was a little kid so don't write off the friendship thing yet, yeah?"

There's a slight twist to Kris's lips when he shakes his head. "No offense, but you don't know Katy."

"I don't." But he knows Kris, at least a little. "But she had eight years with you. That's a lot to throw away completely."

There's a selfish voice in the back of Adam's head that's screaming at him to shut up, shut the fuck up right now and stop trying to persuade the hot guy that his relationship with his ex-wife isn't totally dead. Adam ignores it. Much as he likes Kris, he doesn't want to get more deeply entangled with him if he's still hung up on his ex.

"I left her," Kris says eventually, his thumb working restlessly over Adam's knuckles. "That's a lot for her to get past."

Adam's selfish internal voice likes that revelation. "Do you regret it?"

"No." There's no hint of hesitation to that. Kris picks up his coffee, cuddling it more than looking like he's actually going to drink any. "No, man, it wasn't fair on either of us to keep trying when we were just hurting each other. I... Why am I telling you all this? I don't even know you."

"I'm a very trustworthy guy," Adam promises. "I can provide references. I'm not gonna judge, Kris, sometimes it's easier talking to someone without the whole background baggage." Otherwise every therapist in LA would be out of business. "I'm just saying, eight years. Maybe the friendship's still there."

Kris shakes his head again and withdraws his hand, leaving Adam's lying on the table, nails sparkling a bright turquoise in the late morning sun sheeting through the window. "References? See, only an untrustworthy guy could provide references for his trustworthi...ness. Is that even a word?"

"It's totally a word." Adam leaves his hand on the table a few more seconds then draws it back, picking up his own coffee. "How about if I provide untrustworthy references?"

It's a slide away from the subject, and he recognizes it, lets it happen. Twenty-three minutes isn't enough to know when it's safe to press and when it's not, so he retreats into Kris's soft laughter, coffee merging into lunch until they both have to leave for work.

~~

The brush glides smoothly over his nail, replacing the green ("If you must wear nail polish, Lambert, at least make it fit the theme of the show") with a layer of glittering black. Sunday mornings are a sacred ritual: re-touching his roots, dying his eyebrows, and painting his nails a color to reflect him, not Fiyero. Or getting Brad to paint his nails, since Adam's shit at managing to keep his right hand neat. 

"You've met him three times this week?" Brad dips the brush in again, pressing it against the neck of the bottle to blot the excess before reaching for Adam's hand again. "Three times in a week?"

Adam nods, watching his hand instead of Brad's face. "For coffee, yeah."

"And he still hasn't put out?"

Adam's hand twitches. The brush slides across his finger and Brad pinches his palm hard enough to sting. "It's not like that."

"It's not like that," Brad mimics, voice high and sing-song, reaching for a cotton pad and the nail polish remover. "He respects me. We're taking things slowly."

"Oh, fuck you," Adam says tiredly. Okay, so it's unusual for him, but it's not unheard of. "I told you, he's not having sex with anyone. It's not like he isn't interested."

Brad snorts, wipes the smear from Adam's finger with short, rough strokes, and drops the pad in the wastebasket. "How do you even know that?"

"I just know, okay?" If Kris wasn't interested, he wouldn't be meeting Adam three times in a week. Even just for coffee. 

"How?" Brad repeats, picking up the nail polish and holding it out. "That's gonna have to dry. Do me while it does."

He doesn't even want to go near that innuendo. Instead, he takes the bottle, checks that it's closed, and shakes it gently. "It's in his eyes."

"Do not," Brad says firmly, extending a foot towards Adam and wiggling his toes, "make me quote Cher at you, bitch. How? Does he get hard when you walk in the room? Grope you when you go in for a hug? Have you even kissed him yet?"

Adam stays silent, takes hold of Brad's foot, and wedges it firmly between his knees. There just hasn't been a kissing moment, that's all. Or a hugging one. Not yet.

"Honey." Brad leans forward, displaying enviable flexibility that Adam could really do with less distinct memories of right now, and touches the back of Adam's wrist. "Are you sure he's gay?"

It's a sop to his pride, probably, that Brad hasn't asked if Adam's sure Kris is interested. Not again, anyway. "He's bi."

Brad rolls his eyes. "Bi, or bi-curious?"

"Bi." He's certain of that. He's heard how Kris talks about his ex-wife, but he's also seen the way Kris looks at him. There's heat there, and something much more than curiosity.

"So what are you gonna do?" Brad retreats, uncurling to stretch out on his back across Adam's bed. 

Adam's not even the slightest bit tempted to take advantage of Brad's unspoken invitation. He's too busy trying to formulate a plan. "Escalate."

~~

The thing about coffee is that coffee can just be _coffee_ , unless it's after-midnight, do-you-wanna-come-up-for-coffee type coffee. Sunlit coffee can way too easily be a friends thing, even three times in a week. Even when it stretches into lunch twice. Friends do lunch. Dinner can't be mistaken for anything except a date.

Adam picks out a Thai restaurant - nice enough to be a date restaurant, not high profile enough to be intimidating or hard to get a table, not as likely to involve kiss-denying garlic as a French or Italian place - and arranges to meet Kris there on Monday evening. Neither of them are working that night, and even though Adam's not exactly counting on the other kind of coffee happening after the meal, the option's still there. He's not lying to himself enough to pretend he hasn't considered it. He's definitely considering it when it turns out that Kris has arrived before him and is waiting outside. It means that Adam gets to take his time appreciating the way Kris looks before Kris notices him, and Kris is worth appreciating. Kris isn't exactly dressed up, but the tan pants fit better than Kris’s jeans usually do and the slim lines of the shirt remind Adam all over again that Kris's body is something that he really wants to get more intimately acquainted with. 

One step at a time. He raises a hand, catches Kris's notice, and can feel the grin widening on his face at how happy Kris looks to see him. Escalation is going to be _fun_.

~~

Kris is an enigma. Seriously. Adam knows what kind of music Kris likes, what kinds of clothes he wears (mostly way too loose), what he likes to eat, his political views, that he likes Twitter but won't use Facebook. He knows that Kris loves early Robin Williams comedy and the Daily Show but hates Stephen Colbert. He knows that Kris is Christian and believes in the fundamental goodness of humanity (which is kind of precious and sometimes Adam envies it). He knows that Kris moved to LA from a tiny place in Arkansas that Adam's never heard of but since their first meeting for coffee, he hasn't learnt anything more about Kris's family, his friends or what he actually does when he's not with Adam.

Apart from jerking off. 

Adam definitely never imagined that a dinner date with Kris would involve a discussion of the merits of various brands of lube. He's not even sure how they got onto the subject.

"Wet?" he asks, slightly stunned. Not by Kris's preference, but seriously, someone that adorable and innocent looking shouldn't be quite so shameless in the discussion of sex. He should at least have the decency to blush some. 

Kris nods. "ID Glide's good, but silicone-based works better and Wet lasts longer. It's thicker, too, so it feels like it goes further?"

Fuck, the mental images. Adam's pretty sure the main reason he's not blushing is because every spare bit of bloodflow's gone down to his cock. He's also amazingly glad of the table hiding that reaction from Kris. "Right, yeah," he agrees, hoping that his voice sounds a lot steadier than it feels. "Isn't that bad for condoms, though?"

"I don't use them," Kris says with a grin, and a whole new flood of fantasies is born in Adam's increasingly overactive brain. "It's not like I'm sharing my toys with anyone and I'm not gonna get pregnant, I'm not gonna get STDs from my fingers and I don't use silicone insertables, so..."

So. No need for condoms. Adam swallows hard and prays to a god he probably doesn't even believe in that he doesn't have to stand up any time soon. 

"And silicone's actually okay with condoms, anyway," Kris continues. "Plus it's waterproof. You're thinking about oil-based. Silicone's way better."

Shit, Kris is seriously trying to kill him. Mental overload as Adam's imagination pictures - in exquisite detail - Kris naked in the shower fucking himself on a dildo attached to the tile with one hand wrapped around his cock (which in Adam's imagination is seriously fucking gorgeous).

"It can be a bitch to wash out, though," Kris says thoughtfully.

The mental image fast-forwards to Kris, his hair messed, his lips full and bitten and his eyes dark and heavy with satiation, contorted to push fingers up his own ass to clean out remnants of lube. Slightly hazily and definitely belatedly, Adam realizes that he is, in fact, doomed.

Which is, of course, the moment their hostess appears, all bright smiles, to enquire whether they want dessert.

The only thing Adam wants in his mouth right then is Kris, but he manages to get through a request for jasmine tea with relative grace.

~~~

One of the things Adam’s always loved about LA is that it's never truly cold. It means that as they leave the restaurant, instead of coming out into an unpleasantly cold evening, they're stepping out into warmer, slightly more humid air than in the restaurant. It's kinder than the cold would be, softer, and makes it easier to turn to Kris and take his hand. "You wanna go on somewhere?"

Kris doesn't resist the hand-holding. On the contrary, there's active encouragement in the way he turns his hand to lace his fingers with Adam's. "Like a bar?"

"Or a club." Adam tries stroking his thumb across the back of Kris's hand, rubbing lightly over his knuckles. "The night's young." And theirs.

"I'm not really a club kind of guy." Kris grins up at him. "And my car's here, I'm not gonna be able to drive home if I go on to a bar."

He'd _known_ that agreeing to meet at the restaurant was a tactical error. "I'd offer you a ride, but I took a cab here."

"You want a ride home, then?" Kris offers.

Fuck, yeah. Adam resists the impulse to fist pump in triumph, and accepts.

~~~

Adam's apartment isn't far from the restaurant. Far enough that he wouldn't think of walking (hello, it's L.A., it's more than three blocks and he likes breathing), but not far enough that he'd feel guilty about it taking Kris out of his way if Kris lives in a different direction. Kris is polite enough about it that Adam can't actually get from him which neighborhood he lives in, even though he does kind of try. Subtly. "You're sure I'm not out of your way?"

"No, man, it's cool, I know where you are." Kris flashes him a brief grin in the darkness of the car, glow of streetlights sliding across his face and casting misleading shadows. "Just down here, right?"

It's not an answer to the question Adam asked, but he suspects it's all that he's getting. "Yeah," he agrees, giving up. "Though if you wanna come up for coffee you might wanna stop a block away, parking gets kind of busy."

"Thanks, but I can't drink caffeine this late if I wanna get any sleep." Kris flicks the indicator on, slowing for the turning. 

Adam's not even sure he has any actual coffee in his apartment. He's pretty sure that he's got ways of helping Kris sleep, though. "I might have decaf?"

Kris laughs. "Heretic. Seriously, thanks."

The unspoken refusal's as clear as if Kris had said it aloud. And maybe Kris has a long drive home. "Well, thanks for the ride," Adam says lightly. "My building's just on the next block."

Kris obligingly puts his other indicator on. "I had a great time tonight."

It's a cliché phrase, almost a line, but it sounds genuine coming from Kris. "Me too," Adam agrees. Blue balls aside. "You wanna maybe do it again sometime?"

"Sure." Kris pulls into a space miraculously left within half a block of Adam's building, car engine quieting to idle. "Next week?"

Sooner would be better, but Adam's forced to admit to himself that he shouldn't be thinking of switching a night off performances to try to get a date. "Sounds good." He unclips his seatbelt, hesitates, then decides fuck it, he's going for it, and leans in towards Kris.

Kris promptly leans back. "Adam?"

Adam pauses, but doesn't retreat. "Yeah?"

"I'm not gonna come up and have sex with you," Kris says softly.

Well, that's clear, if somewhat bluntly stated. And okay, maybe kills a tiny bit of hope, but he's not ever going to try to pressure Kris into sex if he doesn't want it. "A kiss is not sex, Kristopher."

Kris relaxes some, seatbelt hissing as his shoulders move. "Just a kiss?"

"Just a kiss," Adam promises, watching Kris's face intently. "That's all." Probably. As if a kiss can ever be classed as ‘just’. A kiss can be everything - or nothing. As long as it's shared, rather than given or taken. 

"One kiss?" Kris still looks wary. 

It's really not something that Adam wants to miss out on, but... "Unless you don't want me to kiss you?" Because it's entirely possible that he's misread the signs. Unlikely, because they’ve been pretty obvious signs, but still possible. 

Kris pauses, licking his lips in an entirely distracting manner, pink tongue tip sliding slow over the bow of his upper lip. "I didn't say that."

Oh, thank fuck. "So..."

"So," Kris agrees, his eyes dark, drawing Adam's attention back up from the temptation of his lips. "One kiss. Just a kiss."

"Someday," Adam says, freeing himself of his seatbelt so he can move more easily, "you're gonna tell me what you're so afraid of."

But not right now. Right now is for kissing before Kris can raise an objection to that. A light, gentle press of lips to lips, heat kindling in Adam’s chest at the soft warmth of the contact, of the way Kris goes completely still for two swift heartbeats then makes this noise, God, beautiful indescribable sound that Adam feels as much as he hears, low vibration against his lips and shared through his throat when Kris goes pliant, head tilting back and lips parting in unmistakable invitation. It's not an invitation that Adam's about to refuse.

One kiss, he'd said. One kiss, they'd agreed upon. It’s still the same kiss. It's just a continuation, deepening, growing, and Kris's lips taste even better than they looked, lingering sweetness of the meal seasoning to the main appeal of Kris's mouth, of the curl and slide of his tongue against Adam's, slick and sure and seriously fucking sexy. It's almost more temptation than Adam can stand, but one thing's more tempting, and that's Kris's trust. One kiss. Just a kiss. There's no way that he'd describe this kiss as 'just' anything, but the only physical connection between them is the join of their lips. He's being good. He's not touching Kris at all, not even a relatively innocent touch to his arm or thigh, definitely not the intimacy he's craving of sliding his fingers into Kris's hair and cradling his head to continue the kiss. 

Kris's fingers on _his_ face, though, mean that Adam's got to make a decision of pushing and taking what they both so obviously want, or pulling back.

It might be one of the hardest things he's ever done, but he pulls back. Breaks the kiss, licks his lips, opens eyes he doesn't remember closing to the sight of Kris leaning forwards, blindly trying to follow, to prolong the kiss further. It's enough that Adam can't suppress a faint groan, will fighting against instinct not to take Kris up on what he's offering, and Adam's dick registering distinct disapproval of his intention not to go further. 

Adam swallows hard, clears his throat, and still hears his voice husky when he speaks. "Kris."

It's slow, but there's a clear process of reactions on Kris's face. First the realization as his eyes open, sudden and wide, before moving. Then the movement, slower than Adam expects, going from the lean into sitting upright again, hand pulled away from Adam's face to run through his own hair instead, faint color staining his cheekbones. "Well, damn."

Adam can't help it. He laughs. It's relief that Kris isn't freaking out, but it's also acknowledgment and appreciation of the mix of wonder, desire and satisfaction in Kris's voice. "You are something else, Kris Allen."

"I really am," Kris agrees absently. "I mean, _damn_. That's your idea of a goodnight kiss?"

"That," Adam says, giving in and reaching out to take Kris's hand, "is my idea of one _hell_ of a first kiss. If you want it to say goodnight...?"

Kris nods, looking slightly shaken, but not resisting the hand-taking. His fingers curl around Adam's hand, reminding Adam once again of the calluses on his fingertips. "Yeah. I think... at least tonight, yeah, it's gonna."

That sounds more promising than Kris probably even realizes. "Are you gonna be okay to drive home?" Adam asks, half-teasing but half-serious. He really doesn't want Kris getting into a road accident because he's distracted by a kiss, even one that awesome. "Because I possibly really do have coffee. Or, you know, there's a Starbucks on the corner if you want to stay somewhere more public." And Starbucks are open at crazy hours.

"Nah, I'm okay." Kris runs his free hand through his hair again before dropping it back to the wheel, squeezing Adam's hand slightly before letting go. "I promise."

Adam's not entirely convinced, but he has to trust Kris to know himself. "Text me when you get home safe?"

"Yes, mom," Kris says, and gives a grin that makes him look a lot more like himself. "Coffee on Wednesday?"

"Definitely." And even better that Kris has been the one to suggest it. "Usual place?"

Kris nods again. "Usual time. Now go before I start thinking you've lied to me about where you live."

Adam draws himself up, hand placed dramatically on his chest, and manages to look affronted for all of half a minute before the mask drops into laughter again. "Honey, if I was gonna lie about where I live, I'd lie a lot more ambitiously. Wednesday. And text me!"

"I will," Kris promises. 

Adam's eyes drop to Kris's lips one more time, to the color that's risen there from kissing, to the memory that he's planning to take upstairs with him, and opens the door to slide out of the car. 

The best thing about amazing first kisses? They don't count as first kisses unless there's at least a second kiss to make them a first. He's feeling a lot more confident about there being a second kiss. And a third. 

And mostly about taking the memory of the first up to his apartment to jerk off to.


	2. Chapter 2

"I have never," Adam says plaintively, "talked about sex so much with anyone I'm not actually _having_ sex with."

Brad waves a dismissive hand and reaches out for the bottle, sloshing vodka into his glass more or less accurately. "You were always more about the doing than the talking. Except..." He eyes Adam speculatively. "When you did both. At the same time."

Cassidy takes the bottle from Brad in his extremely pointed Cassidy way that says he's not just taking the bottle, he's cutting Brad _off_. (Adam wholeheartedly approves of this.) "Not about you, sugar. Adam, _why_ are you talking about sex so much?"

"And what are you talking about?" Brad rolls over, scowling at Cassidy and cradling his newly filled glass protectively in both hands. "Deets."

"Some of us," Adam says, glaring at Brad in turn, "have something called discretion."

"Bo-ring," Brad sings out. "Fuck, when did you guys get so straight? We need to go out, like, now. You guys totes need to get laid. Unless you wanna get laid with each other in which case, do _not_ let me stop you. Just pretend like I'm not here. Or put on a show, I'm open-minded."

Cassidy laughs and runs a hand through Brad's hair. "We're not all exhibitionists like you."

"Hello, Supper Club?" Adam points out. "You kind of are, Cass." And Adam's an actor and singer, which is pretty much the definition of exhibitionist.

"Supper Club's performance, not exhibitionism." Cassidy puts the lid back on the vodka bottle, screwing it down tightly. 

Brad wriggles closer to Cassidy, eying the bottle mournfully. "Potato, potahto. You're both hot, what's the hang-up?"

"Adam's hung up on Kris." Cassidy sets the bottle down, away from Brad. "Who sounds like a tease right now."

"All sizzle and no steak," Brad says with a sigh, curling up and resting his head on Cassidy's thigh. 

Adam snorts and takes another swig from his own half-full glass. "Oh, he's got plenty of steak." Something's sticking in his brain, though, swimming in copious amount of vodka-tonic. Something Brad said about a show. And Kris, licking pastry crumbs from his fingers.

"You're just not getting it," Cassidy points out, stroking Brad's hair. It's a mark of how drunk Brad is that Brad lets him do it without even a squawk of protest about ruining his style. "We should get a cab."

"You should stay," Adam says, like he's pretty sure that Cassidy knew he was going to. "Brad gets the couch."

That one does get a protest from Brad. "I _always_ get the fucking couch."

"Because you're smallest," Cassidy says serenely, and picks Brad up, ending that argument by dropping him onto the couch.

Stretching out on the bed and figuring out if he needs to go to the bathroom or can just skip straight to passing out, Adam wonders if Kris might be an exhibitionist.

~~

It's not like Adam's never been in a sex shop before. Please, he experimented as much as any other overweight gay teenager with access to the internet and stores that ship in discreet packaging, even before graduating to self-confidence, self belief and learning to judge the fit of a butt plug by eye and the curl of thumb and index finger. He's not new to this. He'd thought he was pretty knowledgeable about such things. 

Going into The Pleasure Chest with Kris is like post-grad education when all Adam's got is a high school diploma. Kris greets the staff by name. Kris seems to know the layout of the place better than most of the staff - definitely better than the blushing and apparently new girl that Kris waves off with a laugh and a smile, pointing her in the direction of a couple looking overwhelmed by the range of lubes. Kris heads past the videos, past the books, past several things that Adam's definitely interested in coming back to investigate later, and directly for a section Adam's never seen much point in. At least, not until now, and his imagination goes straight into overdrive. So does his cock, and he briefly regrets his choice of jeans. "Fleshlights?" he asks, slightly strangled and a lot incredulous. "Seriously?"

Kris laughs, passing over everything pink to crouch down and look at the lower shelves. "Not quite. Not usually, anyway. You've tried them, then?"

Okay. Okay, he's talking about things to stick his cock in with a guy he'd really like to stick his cock into and he's going to keep breathing and be cool about this, because he's an open-minded adult. With a hard on and a really hot mouth in close proximity to his crotch and jeans that are way too tight for him to even think about crouching down next to Kris, because castration by denim is so not the way he wants to go. "When I was like sixteen? It was kind of... squidgy." Kind of gross, actually. Nowhere near as good as his hand. 

Kris purses his lips (which so isn't helping Adam's blow job fantasies) and rocks back onto his heels, bracing one hand on his knee. "How old are you now?"

"It's not polite to ask a lady her age," Adam says primly. Especially when he's nearer thirty than twenty and still single. Kind of single. Kind of halfway committed to Kris, whether Kris likes it or not. Whether Kris knows it or not. "Twenty-eight."

"Oh, man, you're missing out," Kris says, pulls something off the shelf and presses it into Adam's hand. "Tenga makes the _best_ stuff. You're good with power toys, right?"

Adam's at least heard of Tenga, but he'd thought it was a novelty thing. He stares down at the box in his hand, which proclaims itself to contain the Flip Hole Tight. At least tight makes sense, from the size of the opening he can see. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Kris says firmly. "Though if you haven't used anything like that in twelve years, maybe that's too much? I mean, passing out's not a fun way to finish sex."

Sex, to Adam, is still something that involves at least two people, but he's planning on working on that definition with Kris. He's also not missing the challenge in Kris's words, no matter how innocent Kris's voice sounds. He narrows his eyes, looking away from the box and at Kris instead. "Are you trying to play sex toy chicken with me?"

Kris laughs, eyes bright, and Adam seriously considers risking castration to get down on his level just to kiss him. "I wouldn't. It's about feeling good, not getting overloaded."

Adam's so definitely working on that opinion when he gets the chance. "So what counts as good but not overloaded?"

"Maybe the disposable stuff to start with?" Kris takes the box back from Adam to go onto the shelf, then shifts his weight across to his other leg. Adam doesn't even pretend not to be watching the way that makes Kris's ass move in the jeans that are nowhere near tight enough for his liking, but apparently loose enough to let Kris move in totally enticing ways. "Like this?"

The thing Adam finds himself holding looks slightly less intimidating, in the "less potential to bite his cock off" sense. Disposable's good. Lack of batteries is good, but he's never been entirely convinced that any of the sleeves are actually any better than his hand. Definitely nowhere near as good as a tight ass or welcoming mouth, anyway. "Deep throat?" he reads, incredulous. "This thing thinks it's as good as a really good blow job?"

"It doesn't think anything, it's a sleeve," Kris points out with a grin. "Try it."

Adam turns the thing over in his hand again. It's not like he's got guys lining up to suck his cock, and he's not holding out hope for Kris to do it any time soon. Plus it's less than twenty dollars. Since he's actually got steady work for once, twenty dollars has to be worth a try. "What do you think of it?"

For the first time since they entered the store, a faint flush of color rises from the collar of Kris's shirt. From his superior vantage point, Adam gets a really good view of it creeping up to Kris's hairline. "I think you should try it," Kris repeats more quietly. 

"Then I'll try it." It's not like it's going to be torture, and he needs to know what he's going to have to beat. Besides, judging from that reaction, Kris apparently really, really likes it, and Adam wants to start getting more specifics about what Kris likes.

~~~

"He took you to a sex shop?" Brad bounces as he drops his ass into the couch, then holds his hand out demandingly.

Adam sighs, and hands over his coffee. "We _met_ at a sex shop," he corrects. Sure, it was Kris's suggestion, but it's not like they met up somewhere else and then it was Kris's idea to go there.

It was Kris's idea to meet there in the first place.

Brad waves a dismissive hand, tastes Adam's coffee, wrinkles his nose, and hands it back. "Needs more syrup. Same difference, anyway, you went to a _sex shop_ with him. And you still think he doesn't want you to fuck him?"

"Because he says so." And Adam's taking that over any circumstantial evidence that Brad thinks he can interpret. "My coffee, bitch, you want more syrup, you get your own."

With a dramatic sigh, Brad flops backwards against the cushions. "Cassidy will get me something that actually has flavor. Won't you, sugarplum?"

Adam's stopped wondering how Brad knows exactly when Cassidy walks into a room - or, in this case, a Starbucks - without showing any sign of looking for him. Instead, he settles back into his chair and crosses his legs, letting his back hunch a little. "Cass won't feed you sugar."

Brad scowls. Cassidy laughs and bends over the back of the couch to kiss Brad's cheek in greeting. "It's corn syrup, anyway. Hazelnut?"

"You know it." Brad twinkles up at Cassidy, reaching up to pat his face. "Mocha, extra shot - "

"I know it," Cassidy agrees. "Adam, you want anything?"

"Kris to put out," Brad says promptly, then turns his sweetest smile on Adam. 

"Fuck you too," Adam says equally sweetly, and hugs his coffee closer, one of his rings chinking sharply against the mug as his grip tightens.

"Been there, done that." Brad curls neatly into the corner of the couch, apparently ignoring Cassidy until he produces coffee. "And much as that might relieve your blue balls..."

"Please." Adam shifts position, not moving to sit up straighter, but adjusting his back so he's sprawled instead of hunched. "We went to Pleasure Chest. My balls are nowhere near blue."

~~

Of course Adam tries it. Not immediately, not the night after buying it, and not just because he's got a show that night. It's just a healthy caution, hesitation; waiting to be sure it's something he wants to do for himself, and not just for Kris.

Okay, so he really does want to try it for Kris. He's pretty sure that it's something they're going to end up talking about, if only because he wants to hear Kris talk about using it himself. 

Still, it's a pretty much a fleshlight. There are _reasons_ that Adam decided he prefers his hand after trying them before, and after all, how different can they be? It's a... thing. A thing that puts pressure around his cock, and most of them seem to be designed around what Adam assumes is how a vagina feels. So not his thing.

He reads the instructions, takes the thing out of its packaging, and stares at it. It definitely doesn't look sexy. Okay, sometimes his hand doesn't look sexy, but that's a natural thing. That's a matter of when he feels horny, he jerks off. This is a matter of he thought he was feeling horny, and then there were instructions, and this thing.

Maybe it needs a soundtrack.

Leaving the toy on his bed, Adam retrieves his phone from his jeans, slots it into the dock, finds the right playlist, and sets it going, then returns to stare at the toy again. He's unwrapped everything he's meant to unwrap. Theoretically, it's ready to use. In practice, his cock doesn't seem enthusiastic.

Adam sighs, rolls onto his back, and picks the thing up. It still doesn't look like something he'd want to fuck. Cautiously, he presses a finger into it and closes his eyes, rationalizing that maybe it will feel better if he can't see it.

It feels weird. It's slick enough, and tight enough. Not so tight that he doesn't think it will stretch for his cock, but still tight enough to grip his finger. The lube feels like decent quality, but there's no disguising that his finger's going into something artificial. It's not cold, exactly, but it's definitely not warm, and it's... it's got different textures inside.

He twists his finger experimentally, feeling the pressure, the slight bumps, the way they ride against his finger as he presses in deeper, draws back, pushes in again. His curiosity, at least, is rising, and his imagination begins to bend towards Kris. Kris has used something like this. Kris has felt that slick pressure, maybe on his finger, definitely on his cock, and that thought stirs a lot more than curiosity. 

Adam sighs, bites his lip, and keeps his eyes closed, drawing his finger back and lowering the toy to rest against the head of his cock, left hand wrapped around his shaft to brace himself. It's an odd mixture of pushing in, and pulling the toy down onto his cock, and the pressure's not unpleasant. Really not unpleasant. 

It's not actually anything like the feel of a hot, wet, eager mouth around his cock, and it's really nowhere close to the feel of a tight ass, but it's still kind of good. It's pressure that moves as he slides the toy over his cock, and on top of that, it's suction that he wasn't expecting. Slick and smooth, but once he starts actually enjoying it and starts putting some energy into it, picks up the pace... fuck, the noise of it. He's all in favor of an enthusiastic blow job or a fuck with plenty of lube but, without another person involved, the squelching just sounds vaguely obscene, and not in a hot way.

In the end, the main things he can say in favor of the thing is that it takes him longer to come than it does when he jerks off with his hand, unless he's taking time to tease himself, and that it's way easier to clean up when he comes inside it instead of over his own hand and stomach.

And that it's really amazingly satisfying when he jerks off not long after, imagining Kris using it on himself.

~~

"So?" Kris cradles his coffee mug in both hands, eyes bright as he watches Adam over it.

Adam's always considered himself to be pretty open-minded. Definitely not prudish. Shameless, even, is something that he's been accused of, and acknowledged proudly. However, it's just past three in the afternoon and he’s grown to like this coffee shop enough to not want to get thrown out or be banned from coming back.

He leans back and crosses his legs, his own mug resting on his thigh. "So?" he echoes, arching his right eyebrow. (He's tried learning to arch his left eyebrow, but apparently that one will only move if his right one moves with it. He can be perfectly expressive with one.)

Kris takes a sip of coffee, licks milk-foam from his lips, and grins at Adam. "I know you tried it."

There's no point to denying it, even if Adam wants to, and he doesn't. "Honey, as much as I am on board with the increasing hints that you've got exhibitionist tendencies - and believe me, I am _so_ on board with that - do you really think this is the place to talk about that?"

Given that Kris had considered a Thai restaurant the right place to talk about lube, it's entirely possible that he does consider a coffee shop a suitable place to talk about sex toys and masturbating. Still, Adam's determined to wrest back a little of the control in the situation. It's not that he has a problem with Kris surprising him, especially in the ways Kris usually surprises him, but he'd rather not feel like he's constantly three steps behind and sex is the kind of subject of conversation that he is not used to being out of his depth when discussing.

And he's totally taking the faint flush of pink across Kris's cheekbones as an admission of being an exhibitionist. 

Kris ducks his head to take a drink of his coffee, but Adam's not missing that Kris is still grinning. "C'mon, just tell me you tried it."

"I tried it," Adam agreed. It's vague enough to sound almost innocent to anyone who might overhear. "I probably won't try it again."

Kris's grin fades a little, some of the energy fading from his posture. "You didn't like it?"

It's pathetic, really, how much Adam wants to give Kris that kind of happy anticipation back. Not enough to lie, but he can still feel the urge. Kris is gorgeous when he's all eager and focused in on Adam, but... "I didn't like it _as much_ ," he said carefully. "Seriously, if you want to talk about this, we should probably take it somewhere more private."

~~

Adam hadn't meant sitting in his car, but it's definitely more private than a coffee shop, and if he can't get Kris into his apartment, his car's an acceptable alternative. For one thing, it means that Kris really does want to talk about sex with him.

Kris settles into the passenger seat, tucks one foot underneath him, and turns expectantly towards Adam. "So?"

"So." Adam agrees, leaning back in his seat and resting his coffee cup against the steering wheel. "It's meant to feel like getting sucked off, right?"

"Right." Kris nods, his fingers curling around his knee. "With the slick and the suction."

There's really no delicate way to phrase it. "Kris, have you ever _had_ a blow job?"

"I was married," Kris points out.

That's no guarantee of blow jobs, from everything Adam's heard. Lee and Scarlett have to be an exception, because every narrative he's heard is about sex not happening within marriage, never mind fun sex. "To your high school sweetheart," Adam says with a nod, to prove he's remembered. "And I'm gonna make an assumption here and guess that she didn't have a cock?"

Color flares in a sudden darkening of Kris's cheeks, staining down his throat. "Only, you know. With a harness."

Okay, so not so comfortable talking about sex with the ex-wife, noted. Adam takes a sip of his coffee (thank God for take-out cups), doesn’t let himself to take time to consider exactly what the ex-wife was doing with Kris and that harness, and shifts tactics. "Have you ever had a blow job from someone who has a biological cock?"

He'd simplify it down to guys, but Raja would kick his ass for implying that all cock-having people are guys. She'd do it in six inch heels, too.

Kris shakes his head slowly. "I've never... I mean, there was only Katy."

Not entirely a surprise, but Adam hasn’t thought through the implications of that before. "Ever?"

"Ever," Kris confirms steadily.

Adam suppresses the urge to offer his condolences. It's Kris's choice, of course. It's always Kris's choice, and Adam's definitely not passing judgment on what Kris's sex life with Katy was like. (At least, not out loud where Kris can hear him.) "Well, I've never had one from anyone without a cock," he says, sharing in return. "At least, I'm pretty sure about that. There have been a few clubs where I never really got as far as checking, but anyway, my point is, if that's what it feels like getting a blow job from someone without a cock, it's different. Really different."

At least Kris doesn't seem to be taking offence. He nods slowly, thumb rubbing against his jeans. "Different how?"

"Warmer, for a start," Adam says frankly then grins, because he really can't help himself. "If you want a demonstration..."

Kris laughs, shaking his head, which is one of the two possible positive outcomes of that offer. Not the one Adam would prefer, but one that leaves the option of making it again in future. "Thanks, man, but I'm good. Really."

"You so aren't," Adam assures him. " _I'm_ good. Really good. I can provide references for that, too, if you want them. Anyway, it’s warmer. Plus there's the whole lack of predictability thing that happens when someone else gets involved, variation..."

"You can do variation," Kris interrupts, sitting up straighter. "You can... the hole on the end, if you put your finger over it or not, it sucks harder or less, and you can do faster or slower, or..."

Adam shakes his head. "Nowhere close. Really. Trust me on this, it's no substitute for the real thing."

"You must be using it wrong," Kris says stubbornly, which Adam considers deeply unreasonable considering how hard he's been trying not to deny the validity of Kris's preferred sexual practices. "Those things... they're... I... they're really good."

"They're never gonna give me a hummer." Adam holds up a hand as Kris opens his mouth. "Don't even think about mentioning the vibrating ones, I am _not_ putting my cock in one of those. You're just not gonna convince me on this one."

Kris nods slowly, bites his lip, then tightens his hold on his leg, his coffee cup balanced on his other knee. "How about if I show you?"

It's not like Adam had any better plans for the afternoon.

~~

"I don't really get why you're so determined about this," Adam says over his shoulder as he goes past Kris. "I mean, I'm not complaining if you wanna put on a show, but why do you need to change my mind?"

Kris shuts the door behind them and shoots the security chain across, hanging his keys on a hook next to the door so Adam knows he can get out. (Kris probably isn't kidnapping him, but it's still good to know there's an escape route.) "You want to change mine, right?"

Adam can't actually deny that. "It would be nice," he admits. "But I'm not gonna push you to it, honey. What you wanna do, or don't wanna do, with your body is your choice, not mine."

"But?" Kris says with a grin, squeezing past Adam to lead the way into his... bedroom, okay, Adam's in Kris's bedroom, and he hadn't thought things would escalate that fast, not in his most optimistic fantasies. Then again, apparently Kris has one of those tiny apartments where his bedroom is the whole apartment except for the bathroom, even smaller than Adam's, so Kris's bedroom is also his living room and his kitchen.

"But it would be nice if you chose to do things with your body and my body together." Adam shrugs and grins, sliding his hands into his pockets as he looks around, noting the instrument case protruding from the top of a slouched bag in a corner of the room, as well as something that looks suspiciously like a guitar case leaning against the bookcase. "Sue me, you're hot and I like you."

"And that's not enough for me to have sex with someone." Kris squats down, giving Adam a truly stupendous view of his ass as the denim of his jeans goes tight, and pulls a box from under his bed. It's the kind of box that Adam has for his make-up, but when Kris opens it, it's definitely not full of make-up. Adam recognizes at least some of the contents, but others are a complete mystery to him.

Kris, when Adam can stop looking into Kris's box of wonders and back at Kris instead, doesn't look completely steady. Adam's hoping it's just because he's not balanced as he crouches there, but...

He takes the few steps to move over to Kris, goes down on one knee, and rests a hand on Kris's back. "Hey. You don't have to do this. If you're not comfortable with it, if you don't want to..."

"I want to," Kris says without looking at him. His voice is steady, lower than usual but steady and sure. "Just... I haven't done this before."

"Hey, I thought the idea here is that you're the expert." Adam keeps his tone deliberately light, teasing, because the last thing he wants is to scare Kris off. "Showing me how it works."

"Yeah, well, I've _used_ it before, just..." Kris flashes him a smile that looks decidedly grateful, and takes a deep breath. "Okay. You wanna do this?"

"I want _you_ to do this," Adam corrects gently, leans in and kisses Kris’s cheek. "C’mon. Show me what’s so great about these things."

Nodding, Kris closes his eyes for a moment then turns to kiss Adam back. It’s brief, barely more than a brush of lips, but it’s definitely a kiss and it’s definitely intentional. "Okay. We’re gonna need…" He pauses, bites his lip, then looks back at the box, reaching in to pull out a familiar-looking tube and a bottle of lube. "I’m kinda short on space here…"

"Oh, I have _no_ problem staying up close," Adam assures Kris, grinning. It’s so fucking tempting to suggest they take it to Kris’s bed, but this one’s Kris’s show, so Kris gets to call the shots. And the setting.

Kris ducks his head on a chuckle, rocking back to his heels and away from Adam’s hand as he stands up. (Adam mostly resists the temptation to let his hand slide over Kris’s ass.) "You’re gonna need to be. Gotta pay close attention, if you’re gonna learn."

"Also not gonna be a problem," Adam says promptly, standing rather less smoothly than Kris. He blames it on his jeans, with a side of new boots that haven’t quite broken to his feet yet. "Where do you want me?"

Glancing around again, Kris bites his lip. "I guess I don’t often bring company on up in here. You gonna be good on the bed?"

Oh, so very good. Adam lets his grin widen to a smirk, breaking to laughter when he catches Kris’s expression, somewhere between wide-eyed disbelief and amusement. "Oh, come on. I promise your virtue is safe from me just as long as you want it to be."

"Kinda what I’m worried about," Kris returns, but some of the disbelief fades from his face and he transfers both sleeve and lube to one hand, offering the other one to Adam. "Come on and sit down."

It’s good, probably. At least, Adam hopes it’s good, sliding his hand into Kris’s and squeezing lightly before letting Kris guide him down to sit on the side of the bed. He’s not quite pressed up against Kris’s thigh, but they’re close. Close enough that Adam’s beginning to wonder about what kind of demo he’s about to get. "I usually get naked," he says helpfully (and a little hopefully).

Color stains Kris's cheeks, and he ducks his head forwards, half-hiding a grin. "Seriously, man? You think I’m just gonna strip off and jerk off for you?"

Adam sighs, resisting the urge to pull one leg up and wrap his arms around it. "No harm in being optimistic, right?"

Kris lets go of Adam’s hand to pat his leg. "You just keep dreaming."

"Oh, I will." Seriously. Plenty of dreaming going on, and likely to continue. "So how…?"

"Just like you learn about putting condoms on." With a smile, Kris picks up the sleeve and the lube, flipping the lube open to squeeze some around the top. "Substitutes, right?"

For a moment, Adam wonders if Kris is about to produce a banana – or, if he’s really feeling ambitious, a cucumber – and then moves on to wondering if Kris is planning on using a dildo to demonstrate. He’s entirely sure that he saw several dildos in Kris’s toy box, but Kris didn’t take any of them out, so… "Substitutes?"

"Substitutes," Kris repeats firmly, caps the lube and puts it down. "Okay, so, you’re right-handed, yeah?"

"Mmmhmm." That doesn’t always mean that Adam jerks off with his right hand, but it’s a reasonable assumption for Kris to make. "But I can be flexible on that."

Kris presses his lips together like he’s trying to hold back laughter, and wraps his right hand around the tube of the sleeve. "How about we stick with the basics right now?"

"The basics doesn’t involve toys," Adam points out, crosses his legs, and angles his body more towards Kris, watching his hands. "But okay, sure."

"Okay." Kris grins, holds up his left hand, then folds his ring and pinky finger down, anchoring them against his palm with his thumb. "So, substitute."

Adam studies Kris’s substitute for a moment, lifts his eyebrows, then reaches out, coaxing Kris’s ring finger out to stretch out alongside the first two. "Now that’s more like it."

"Size queen," Kris deadpans. 

Adam laughs, pats the back of Kris’s hand, and lets go. "Might as well be a more accurate substitute."

For a moment – a short moment, but one Adam catches because he’s watching for it – Kris’s gaze flicks down towards Adam’s lap before fixing back on the sleeve and substitute. His teeth draw over his lower lip, and his next breath is just a little slower, a little deeper. It’s gorgeous. "Okay," Kris repeats more quietly. "You wanted a demo, right?"

Adam wants a lot more than a demo, but this is definitely a good start. This is going to give him at least some kind of idea of how Kris likes to be touched, how Kris jerks off, and that’s something he genuinely wants to learn. Learning how else the sleeve can be used is pretty much a fringe benefit here. "I want to see you use it, yeah."

"Demo," Kris repeats firmly, turning his head to flash Adam a quick smile. "Pay attention." 

"You’ve got it," Adam agrees readily. He’s pretty sure that it shouldn’t be erotic to watch Kris push his fingers into the sleeve, but fuck, it is. It’s a sex toy, it looks dull, he can’t see what Kris is feeling, he can only see the movements, but Jesus, the smooth way Kris pushes in, pulls the sleeve down, slow for a couple of strokes before setting up a steady pace… it’s way too easy to imagine Kris doing the same thing with his cock.

A demo is not sex. A demo is not something that Adam’s expecting to end in anyone coming, at least now Kris has made it clear there isn’t going to be any cock involved. A demo is something that’s meant to be educational and Adam’s paying attention, really, but what he’s learning is less about how the toy can get used, and more about how Kris likes to get himself off.

Adam doesn’t focus all of his attention on Kris’s hands, either. Once Kris has set up a steady rhythm, he slows off, slides his finger over the hole on the end, and that’s when Kris’s breath starts getting louder, a little rougher, a little less even. Kris’s lips part and his eyes darken, lids settle half-closed, stay that way when he slips his finger back off the end and picks up again. "It’s… the suction, it pulls tighter when…"

"When you cover it up," Adam completes, swallows, and wills himself to stay strong enough not to either kiss Kris or just crawl on top of him to bear him down onto the bed. It’s fingers. It’s Kris’s fingers, in a plastic and silicon tube. It shouldn’t be anywhere near as hot as it is. 

Kris licks his lips and nods, turning his head towards Adam as he opens his eyes again. "D'you see?" His accent’s stronger, thicker, dropping his voice to a low drawl. 

"Oh, I see," Adam assures him. He sees Kris's fingers, he sees that slid, but mostly he's seeing Kris's face and the faint flush across his cheeks that can't be anything but arousal. It's an effort not to look down into Kris's lap to see whether he's hard. "Is that... is it good?"

"You wanna try?" Kris’s smile slips to something dirtier, something with a promise in it that Adam suddenly desperately wants to take him up on. "Hold out your fingers."

The thing is, Adam’s never really been the kind of guy to be into finger sucking. Sure, he gets the innuendo of it, the suggestion, but it’s something he’s always kept pretty much to a tease before getting on down to the real business of cock sucking. But with Kris looking at him that way, his fingers drawn out of the sleeve, shining slick with lube, the entrance to the sleeve turned towards Adam… Fuck, he’s just been watching Kris turn himself on just as much as he’s been watching how the sleeve works, and if he can imagine Kris’s cock in place of Kris’s fingers, it’s a thousand times easier to imagine his own fingers. 

Silently, eyes steady on Kris’s face, Adam holds up his left hand, first two fingers held out straight, and prays that his hand isn’t shaking.

Kris slides his fingers against Adam’s, transferring some of the lube but mostly just managing a slick, teasing rub. "What happened to the size queen?"

Adam shrugs his right shoulder, keeping his hand still. "I guess my fingers are thicker than yours." Plus it’s Kris’s toy. He doesn’t want to stretch it out.

"I guess so," Kris agrees and then, shit, then the pressure of the sleeve rolls over Adam’s fingers, still warm from Kris’s hand, the texture sliding over his knuckles.

Using it on his cock was nowhere near this level of erotic.

When Kris slides his finger over the end to seal the hole and the suction strengthens, Adam actually gasps, fingers of his right hand digging hard into his left forearm, bracing himself in place. It stops him reaching out for Kris, it stops him from getting his hand on his own swiftly hardening cock, it’s a reminder to stay present and focused. It’s a reminder to not do any of the things he wants to do to and with Kris. "Okay. Okay, that’s… yeah, I get… Kris…"

Kris, the bastard, looks smug, uncovers the hole, and pulls the sleeve back and off Adam’s fingers. "Not how you used it, right?"

"Nowhere near," Adam says shakily, takes a deep breath and holds it for a few seconds before exhaling slowly, persuading his body to calm down. "Can I just…?"

"Maybe?" Kris stretches up along the bed to grab for a wipe that makes Adam wonder exactly how often Kris is doing things in bed that result in sticky fingers. Or sticky anything else. "Try me."

"Substitutes, right?" Because if Kris is going to turn a demo into a tease, Adam’s damn well going to try to at least attempt a counter argument.

Wiping his fingers, Kris nods. "Right."

No matter how good Kris’s lube is, Adam’s still not planning on tasting it. "Right," he agrees, and reaches to take Kris’s right, lube-free hand in his, grip gentle enough for Kris to pull away if he wants to. "Fingers out, Kris."

Slowly, Kris transfers the scrunched wipe into his left hand, head tilting to the side as he watches Adam. He doesn’t look puzzled or confused, but there’s definitely caution there. "Because?"

"Let me show you the difference." Adam strokes his thumb over Kris’s palm, continuing on up to straighten Kris’s forefinger. "On a substitute."

Fair’s fair, after all. He’s felt the sleeve with Kris controlling it. Kris gets to have a taster of how a blow job might feel with Adam controlling it.

Eyes wide, Kris nods, tension trembling through the hand Adam’s holding. "Just some, right?"

"Just some," Adam agrees, licks his lips, and lifts Kris’s hand higher, some of the exultation filling his chest escaping into his smile. "Stop me any time you’re not comfortable. Just say."

He waits for one more nod, then leans in and flicks his tongue lightly against the tip of Kris’s finger.

Maybe there are good reasons for finger sucking after all. The single lick makes Kris catch his breath, and when Adam closes his lips over Kris’s fingertip, presses his tongue against it, and sucks gently, he’s pretty sure that it’s the first time he’s heard Kris curse, a breathy desperate syllable muttered out almost too quiet to hear. Still, Kris isn’t telling him to stop. 

Adam keeps his eyes on Kris’s face, his hand supporting Kris’s, and slowly works his way down, taking more of Kris’s finger into his mouth. Maybe Kris does have thicker fingers than him after all, skin slightly rough, a faint callus on the tip that Adam can feel against his tongue but never noticed against his fingers. It’s surprisingly satisfying, and not just because Kris is giving him sweet, low sounds every time Adam sucks on his finger. When Adam draws his lips back to touch his teeth, incredibly carefully, to Kris’s skin, Kris’s hand jumps in Adam’s hold and his finger curls, pressing down against Adam’s tongue. 

"Adam," Kris says, and Adam honestly can’t tell if it’s a request for more or a request to stop.

Staying safe and sure, he stops, kissing Kris’s fingertip before lifting his head, keeping hold of Kris’s arm. "Okay, honey?"

"Yeah," Kris breathes, curling his finger back to join the others loosely pressed against his palm, then turns his hand to wrap around Adam’s. "Yeah, I’m… Wow."

Wow, Adam figures, is definitely okay. Wow is probably even good. "You really are," he says softly, kisses the back of Kris’s hand, then leans in to kiss Kris. Nothing heavy, nothing deep, just a brief, warm press of lips to lips. 

"No, I mean…" Kris lifts his free hand, stopping before reaching Adam's head and changing direction, wrapping it around the back of his own neck instead. "You weren’t kidding about being good."

Adam’s less sure of whether to interpret that as favorable or not, but he’s holding onto the wow. "And you were right about the sleeve," he says softly.

"So you’ll give it another go?" Tilting his head to the side, Kris lifts his elbow, then stretches his arm up before reaching back behind him.

Heroically, Adam doesn’t look down to check on the state of Kris’s jeans. "I think I just might give it another try."


	3. Chapter 3

"You are not," Brad says firmly, emphasizing his point with a sternly directed finger, "allowed to get converted to the whole not having sex thing."

Cassidy hands the bottle up to Brad and leans back against the side of Adam’s bed, submitting to having his hair somewhat haphazardly petted by Brad. "If it’s what Adam feels is right for him…"

"It's not," Adam says firmly, shifting along to be safely out of Brad's reach. He's ninety percent sure that Brad's focused on petting Cassidy and Cassidy only, but he's not about to take the chance if he can avoid it. Brad has a bad habit of commenting on Adam's roots. "I am so not giving up on sex."

"But?" Brad prompts, takes a swig from the bottle and then very generously offers it over to Adam. "You haven't hooked up with anyone since you got fixated on Kris, and that is long enough _not_ to be healthy."

"Kris hasn't hooked up with anyone in a lot longer," Adam retorts, looks down at the vodka, sighs, and lifts the bottle to take a swallow before wedging it between his knees. "I'm just branching out a bit. Trying new things. And it's not like Kris has sworn off interactive sex for the rest of his life."

"But he has for this bit." Cassidy reaches over and tugs the bottle free from Adam's legs. "Adam, have you thought about this? Really thought about what it means that _you_ don't plan on having sex with anyone until Kris is ready?"

It's not that Adam actually has that as a plan. He's never sat down and decided not to have sex with anyone. It's not even that he thinks that Kris would be disappointed or hurt if he did go out and hook up at a club, although maybe, possibly, he thinks that might be true, or maybe he's hoping it. It's just how things have happened. "I never said that," Adam says weakly, eyeing the vodka wistfully. "I just, I like him."

Sheets rustle as Brad rolls onto his stomach, stretching down to Cassidy's shoulders. "You're sure about that? It's not just you fixating because he said no to you?"

Adam flips the finger in Brad's direction, pulling his knees up to wrap his arms around them. "Bitch, my ego is not that precious." And his ego was convinced that if he wanted to just get laid, he could manage that without too much effort.

"I don't think your ego's the thing in play here," Cassidy says dryly, head dropping back at Brad's touch. "Does Kris know you've made that kind of commitment to him?"

No. Kris doesn't know, but Adam's sex life has never really featured heavily in their conversation. At least, not Adam's current sex life. Adam's sexual experience, definitely. "It's my decision," Adam insists. "He's not pressuring me or anything. He's not promising we can have sex if I wait or whatever, it's just... what I'm choosing to do."

Cassidy turns his head towards Adam, his eyes opening, and rubs his cheek against Brad's arm. "When do we get to meet Kris?"

~~

Monday night means dinner with Kris again. Second date means, as far as Adam's concerned, that it's Kris's choice of venue, and Kris's choice of venue is apparently Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles. Adam's heard of it, anyone who's been in LA longer than a couple of days has heard of it, but it's not somewhere Adam's ever been. It's a lot more casual than Adam would have chosen, and it's going to mean extra work in the gym because there's nothing on the menu that Adam would usually allow himself to eat. Even the chicken salad comes with fries. Still, it does mean he gets to watch Kris licking chicken grease from his fingers, and that's not nothing.

"Just like momma used to make?" Adam grins, trying to ignore the tempting salt-grease smell of his fries, and spears a grape tomato with his fork. There’s temptation everywhere, and most of it not on his plate.

Kris shakes his head, chuckles, and sucks grease from his thumb before picking up his fork to start on his waffles. (Waffles. Adam’s pretty sure his ass is expanding just watching Kris eat. It’s unfair that Kris can eat like this and still look that good.) "Nowhere outside Arkansas makes chicken like my momma does."

"Long way to go for dinner, though," Adam says lightly. He’s mostly sure that his chicken’s been grilled and not fried, but he’s fairly sure the dressing’s got real mayo in it. It’s going to be a hard workout in the morning.

Swiping his piece of waffle through the butter on his plate, Kris nods. "Yeah, and this place is pretty good for LA. There’s a guy who runs a food truck that does amazing fried chicken, like so good that I wouldn’t take my momma there, she wouldn’t leave until she got the recipe."

"She’s a little competitive, then?" Finally, Adam’s getting some details on Kris’s family, and he’s way more interested than he expected to be. Little details that make up the background of who Kris is and okay, fine, maybe Cassidy’s right. Maybe Adam’s actually emotionally invested in Kris.

"I guess you’ve never been to small town Arkansas," Kris says, picking up another chicken wing. "We get real protective over our home-cooked chicken."

The coated chicken’s looking better by the second, and so is Kris’s mouth, his lips shining with the grease and plumped dark with spice. "Protective like it’s got to be better than any in LA?"

"You got it." Kris licks his lips, turning the wing and studying it. "And the spice blend recipes, they get handed down in families. We have cookouts and Momma’s had the blue ribbon for her chicken since I can remember, except this one year…"

"One year?" Adam prompts, enchanted as much by the easy happiness on Kris’s face as the mental image of a whole town turned out into the streets, matriarchs in fierce competition over their chicken recipes.

"One year," Kris agrees. "I think I was about fourteen, Katy was helping Mrs. O’Connell with the coating, they beat out Momma." He blinks slowly, tearing another strip of chicken from bone with his teeth and licking coating crumbs from his fingers before they can fall. "I don’t think Momma actually forgave Mrs. O’Connell for that year until me and Katy got married."

It’s the first time in his life that Adam’s ever wished that he knew how to cook fried chicken. "But she did win again after that year?"

"She brought me in to help." Kris grins, wide and mischievous, and puts his chicken wing down. "I guess we made a good team."

There’s no way in hell that Adam’s going to get jealous of Kris’s relationship with his mom. He’s got a great relationship with his own mom, but it’s more a cocktails and pedicures relationship than a cooking fried chicken for town competitions relationship, and that’s the way he’s always liked it. He’s also not going to speculate about Kris and Katy ever entering that fried chicken competition together. "I don’t have a clue how you even fry chicken," he admits instead. "Maybe you could show me sometime?"

Sometime he can fast in advance and be ready for the workouts he’ll need after.

"Maybe," Kris says, some of his animation fading, wipes his fingers on a napkin and reaches for his soda. "Adam, can I ask you something?"

"Sure." It doesn’t sound like a good something, not if it’s something that puts that expression on Kris’s face, but Adam’s not going to refuse Kris the chance to ask. He puts his fork down, takes a swallow of water, and gives Kris his full attention, hands folded together on the table in front of him.

Kris chews his lower lip for a moment, then rolls his shoulders back, chin lifting. "Cale says we’re dating."

That’s not a question. That’s a statement, and one that Adam isn’t quite sure how to respond to, partly because he can’t remember Kris ever mentioning Cale before. Partly because he didn’t know that Kris was seeing anyone else and okay, fine, he never asked Kris about it, he never talked to Kris about it, they never agreed anything so it’s perfectly reasonable that Kris has been seeing someone else and perfectly unreasonable that hearing it feels like Kris has just punched Adam in the diaphragm. No rational reason at all for the cold weight in his stomach or the dizzy certainty that he’s just had his breath stolen. "What do _you_ say?"

"That I was pretty sure I’d know if I was dating anyone." Kris shrugs, fingers rubbing the side of his plate, and doesn’t meet Adam’s eyes. "I thought I would, but I guess…"

"If you don’t know," Adam interrupts, pressing his hands closer together to stop himself from reaching out for Kris because if Kris is dating someone else, touching right now is probably a bad idea, "if you don’t know, you get to make that decision, honey. Kris. You do. Not anyone else. Not Cale. You."

"Sometimes Cale sees things I don’t," Kris says simply and fuck, Cassidy was right, _is_ right, and Adam had forgotten that heartache isn’t just a poetic expression. It’s literal, physical pain, dull and insistent. 

Adam swallows it back, doesn’t let go of his hands so he can rub his chest or touch his throat, and keeps watching Kris. "Do you want to be dating Cale?"

"Do I what?" Kris looks up at him, eyes wide and startled, and shakes his head slowly on a laugh. "Man, I’m not dating _Cale_. Cale’s… He’s like my brother. Except way less annoying."

That’s something that Adam’s withholding judgment on because right now, Cale’s sounding pretty fucking annoying to him. He takes a deep breath, loosens his hands, and offers one across the table to Kris. "Back up a step for me here. Who are you meant to be dating?"

"I _said_ he had it wrong," Kris says, sounding satisfied, and stretches a hand out to touch his fingers to Adam’s. "You. He thinks you and me are dating. Each other."

Right.

That.

Okay.

It’s not exactly what Adam’s been thinking, either. Sure, they’ve been out together a couple of times on what he might (would, intended to, mentally does) call dates, but that’s not the same thing as dating. Dating’s pretty low commitment, but it’s an ongoing thing, the kind of thing where when each date ends, there’s a reasonable expectation of there being another date in the near future. It’s… what he’s been doing with Kris. "Well, shit," he says feelingly.

Kris, because he’s an unfeeling bastard, breaks into laughter. "Oh, man, your _face_ …"

"My face is perfect," Adam says with an instinctive attempt at dignity to cover the fact that he’s not entirely sure whether to be offended or not. "Your Cale thinks you’re dating my face."

"Cale thinks I’m dating your body," Kris retorts. "He thinks I’m planning on using you for sex and then I’ll hate myself."

Cale is sounding more annoying with everything that Kris says about him. "The only thing I’m not in favor of there is you hating yourself," Adam says frankly, because he really, honestly has no problem with Kris dating his body, dating him period, or using him for sex. Unless it’s only using him for sex because apparently Adam’s getting terrifyingly addicted to Kris’s company. "Okay, let’s just… forget Cale for a moment, please? Just tell me if you want to be dating me."

Kris opens his mouth, looks at Adam for a moment, then closes it again, reaching to pull his soda close enough to take a drink. (Through a straw, because Kris is apparently determined to give Adam’s libido fantasy fodder for the next week.) "I don’t wanna use you for sex," he says eventually.

Adam’s not entirely sure if that’s a relief or a disappointment, but he knows what it isn’t. "That’s an answer to a question I didn’t ask," he says, sliding his hand forwards to touch Kris’s fingers more firmly. "Forget about the sex thing. One thing at a time. Do you want to be dating me?"

"Do you?" Kris spreads his fingers, lacing them together with Adam’s, which Adam’s taking as more of an answer than he’s getting from words.

"Yes," he says, before he can have time to think about it or get nervous or second guess himself. "Now give me an answer, Kristopher."

Kris hesitates again, his hold tightening on Adam’s hand. "I don’t want you to resent me down the road if… I mean, sex. If I don’t."

There are discussions that would definitely work better not over a table, and not in a busy chicken and waffles place. This is one of them, but apparently Adam’s not getting a choice on location, so he’s going to have to make the best of it. "Okay, deep breath, listen to what I’m saying here. Forget about the sex thing. Okay? Got it? Forget about it."

"But you want…" Kris starts, stopping when Adam shakes his head. 

"I want to have sex with you? I’m not gonna lie to you, and I’m not gonna try to make a secret of it. Yeah, I’d love to have sex with you, but there’s a condition on that. That condition is that I don’t, ever, have sex with people who don’t want to have sex with me. Freely, of their own will, no pressure, no obligation. Not because they think _I_ want to, because we _both_ want to. So, since you don’t want sex, can we just put that on one side?"

There’s a moment of silence before Kris lifts their joined hands, leans forwards, and very deliberately kisses the back of Adam’s hand. "You shouldn’t give up sex for me, any more than I should have it for you."

"I’m not," Adam says earnestly and thoughtlessly, catching himself when Kris’s face clouds. "No, shit, I didn’t mean… I’m not having sex with anyone else right now, but that’s… I don’t _want_ to have sex with anyone else right now." 

"You don't know how long that's gonna last," Kris insists. 

Adam's so relieved, he could kiss Kris, even though he's pretty sure that's not the reaction that Kris expects and also he pretty much always could kiss Kris. "Exactly. I don't know. You don't know. Not everything has to be about the future."

"But..."

"No," Adam says firmly. "No buts. Not about what might happen. Either of us could get hit by a car on the way home tonight. Live for the moment, Kris. This moment. Aren't you having a good time?"

"Not right now," Kris admits with a twist of his lips that's not quite a smile, but does at least look honest. "Gonna be kinda nervous driving home."

It's probably a joke, but Adam's slightly spooked himself by mentioning that and he's not even letting his brain go towards the crazy gunman possibility. "Well, drive careful and let me know when you get home safe, maybe. Just don't go yet."

"Gonna need to go soon." Kris glances behind him towards the hovering waiter that Adam's been determinedly ignoring. "Let them close up."

Another disadvantage of Kris's choice of venue: it closes stupidly early. Adam's trying very hard not to think that Kris is trying to keep the evening short. "Sure," he says easily. "You want the rest of that to go?"

Kris looks back at his food and grins. "Yeah, I'll take that. Do you wanna go on somewhere?"

Not trying to keep it short, then. Adam doesn't even try to hide his relief. "I thought you weren't a club kind of guy?"

"I'm not." Kris slides out of his seat, standing up to signal to the grateful waiter. "But there's an ice cream place just about half a block west."

~~

The ice cream place turns out to have fro-yo and sorbet as well. Adam's torn between relief and surprised pleasure that Kris has been paying enough attention to him to choose a place that suits both of them, because of course Kris is going for the full fat, full dairy option. With hot fudge sauce.

Maybe Kris has been paying a little too much attention to what Adam likes, because Kris licking hot fudge sauce from his lips and occasionally his fingers is definitely what Adam likes. Likes enough that he's glad to be sitting at a table, which is beginning to be a theme of his time with Kris.

"So," Kris says, reloading his spoon with ice cream and angling it to catch sauce as well. "Live for the moment?"

Adam nods, tearing his attention away from Kris's cold-plumped lips for a moment. "Right. You can't enjoy right now if you're worrying about what might happen in the future."

"It's not all worrying," Kris protests, pausing to curl his tongue around the neck of his spoon to catch a drip. "There's good stuff, too. Planning."

"If it's planning how to deal with issues that might not happen, it's worrying." Adam licks his own raspberry sorbet from his spoon. "Short term plans for fun may be allowed."

"May be?" Kris shakes his head, chuckling. "And you get to set that?"

"Not alone," Adam says reasonably. "We can come to an agreement."

Kris slides his spoon from his mouth and taps it against his lips for a moment. (Adam's definitely suspecting that Kris is doing that on purpose.) "Give me an example."

"We're allowed to plan to meet for lunch on Wednesday," Adam says instantly, grinning when Kris laughs. "I'd say coffee, but by now we both know it's gonna turn into lunch as well and I don't wanna get greedy here."

"So we're going for lunch?" Reaching over the table, Kris steals a spoonful of Adam's sorbet, humming thoughtfully as he eats it. "How about lunch and another shopping trip?"

"Done," Adam says instantly. "And dating?"

Kris hesitates, licking his spoon clean. "No sex?"

"No pressure," Adam corrects. Partly because he's not about to rule out something he definitely wants to leave as a possibility, partly because he's not entirely sure how Kris classifies sex, partly because he doesn't want Kris to decide that there's not going to be any sex just because they agreed on that. "If you don't want it to happen, it doesn't happen."

"And if you want it to happen?" Kris asks intently.

Adam shakes his head. "I don't know what kind of people you've been hanging out with, honey, but you need to listen to me here, and you need to believe me. It _doesn't matter_ what I want, because if you don't want it as well, I don't. And for the record, that applies to most things we do together."

Kris goes quiet for a few moments, thoughtful expression on his face as he eats his ice cream, lips flushed pink from the cold, tongue occasionally flicking out to catch stray melted drops that Adam's having a seriously hard time not thinking of as something else entirely. "Even ice cream?"

Ice cream's a little far to go for a metaphor for consent, but Adam's willing to try. "Even ice cream," he agrees. "You see how you're eating that, and I've got sorbet? Doesn't mean we're not both still having a good time."

China rings as Kris drags his spoon across the bottom of his dish one more time. "Man, you're never gonna convince me that you reach for that when it all hits the fan."

"I'm not trying," Adam says instantly, grinning wide when Kris laughs and finally puts his spoon down. "I'm still enjoying this now. And I'm really enjoying watching you enjoy that."

"I'm done on that," Kris says with a sad sigh, one that fades almost instantly. 

Adam pauses, then loads his spoon with melting sorbet and offers it across the table, hand cupped under it to catch any drips. "So share mine."

For a moment, Adam thinks that Kris is going to refuse. Even when Kris reaches out to touch his hand, he's expecting Kris to take the spoon from him at best. When Kris actually just rests fingers against the side of his hand and leans in to lick the sweet-tart ice from Adam's spoon, his eyes turned up to watch Adam's face... That's exactly when Adam begins to relax and hope again.

~~

Meeting Kris in the daylight may be less date-like, but it does mean it's easier for Adam to see Kris clearly. Kris's jeans are still criminally loose and he hasn't yet showed up in a shirt as temptingly tight-fitting as the one Adam had first seen him in, but he still looks unreasonably good with the sun on his skin, the midday breeze playing through his hair, and oversized aviators hiding his eyes. 

It's distracting enough that Adam takes a few moments to realize that Kris has stopped talking, and the tilt of his head means that he's expecting a response. "Absolutely," he says confidently. 

Kris laughs. "You could at least try."

"I'm trying," Adam protests. "It's just... loud. The traffic..."

The unhelpfully nonexistent and currently silent traffic. A single guy cycles past, earphones in, singing tunelessly to himself.

Kris slides his aviators down his nose, looks at Adam over them, and raises his eyebrows.

Adam cracks up, entirely unashamed. "Okay, okay, you got me. Run that by me again?"

With one finger, Kris pushes his aviators back into place, takes two steps back then, in slow motion, walks forwards, turns on his heel, and smoothly pulls his shades down again, breaking into a laugh. "I thought you were an actor."

"Musical theater," Adam protests. "Let me sing about it, I'm awesome."

"Modest, too." Kris grins, wrinkling his nose to nudge his shades back into place. "I said, I wanna know what kind of stuff you've already used. Or stuff you do use."

Adam glances up at the window of Pleasure Chest. "I wish I could say I never used anything pink, but..."

"But it would be a lie?" Kris suggests, sliding his hands into his pockets. 

"But pink is kind of awesome," Adam corrects with a wide smile. "There's a time and a place for everything, baby, and that includes pink fluffy handcuffs."

"I'd say I don't wanna know..." Pulling the door open, Kris tilts his head in invitation.

"But it would be a lie?" Adam echoes, laughs, and goes in, pushing his shades up to rest on his hair and blinking to let his eyes adjust to the light.

"Total lie," Kris says, lets the door close, and pulls his aviators off. "Yep."

"I have an ex who was really into the whole femme thing." Talking about his exs hadn't been on Adam's mental plan for the afternoon, but since he'd mentioned it... "You should probably meet him."

Not just because of pink and fluffy handcuffs. At some point, Adam actually does want Kris to meet his friends, even if he's more than a little nervous of Kris meeting Brad.

"You think I'm into the whole femme thing?" Kris shakes his head, already intent on the shelves.

"I think..." Adam pauses, studying Kris and making no effort to hide his scrutiny. It's meant as a tease, but turns into more. Turns into serious consideration going deeper than his fantasies of Kris getting himself off, or turning himself on, and more into what Kris might be thinking of and why. "I think there's more to you than meets the eye, Kristopher."

Not just because Kris's clothes do him no favors at all in showing off the body that Adam's entirely sure is hiding under them. 

"You could be right," Kris agrees slowly, still and apparently entirely comfortable with being studied. "You want to start with those handcuffs?"

Adam shakes his head, reaching up to pull his shades off entirely and tuck one arm into his jeans pocket to anchor them in place. "Let's go with the basics."

"Lube?" Kris says, one corner of his mouth beginning to curl towards a smile.

"Oh, the innocence of youth." Adam places a hand on his chest, sighing dramatically. "Take me to your buttplugs, young man."

~~

Going through the shelves to find something similar to the things Adam has at home is easier than Kris picking things out for him. Easier, because Adam knows what he's looking at. Easier, because Adam's a lot more used to being the one who knows what he's talking about when it comes to sex toys.

"Isn't that kind of small?" Kris asks skeptically, when Adam picks up a medium sized plug similar to the ones he owns. 

Arching an eyebrow, Adam taps his finger lightly on the head of the plug. "Depends what you want from it, honey. I don't use this on its own." He pauses, considers. "Or on my own, sometimes."

"So you..." Kris tilts his head, apparently intent on assessing the plug. It's about five inches long, a little less than a couple of inches in diameter, with a gentle flare before the base that Adam knows from experience holds it in easily, without feeling uncomfortable. The head bends slightly, and the whole is purple, although the color's a coincidence. The color makes zero difference to how it feels.

"Fingers first, usually," Adam says helpfully. "Or my mouth. Then the plug, to keep him nice and open until we're ready to fuck."

Kris swallows, the sound audible, and Adam mentally chalks himself up a point. "So this is..."

"Oh, I'm bigger." Adam's definitely enjoying himself. "But I like to feel it. So does he, usually."

"Right," Kris says, a little too fast to sound completely relaxed. "You don't use them yourself? I mean, on yourself?"

"Sometimes." Adam purses his lips thoughtfully. "Sometimes I like something inside me when I'm jerking off. Don't you?"

Kris nods, slightly uneven. "Sometimes. But usually, I mean, I don't often. I use, uh..."

Delighted as Adam is to have Kris flustered, he regrets losing coherence. "A vibrator?"

"No." Kris bites his lip, not quite holding back a grin. "A prostate massager. Man, those things are awesome."

"See, I call that a finger," Adam says. "Also, those are so not basic."

"Oh, well, basic." Kris's lip escapes, and his grin widens. "Dildos?"

"Now we're talking," Adam agrees, and smiles, startled and genuine, when Kris's hand slips into his.

~~

"This one? Really?" Privately - very privately - Adam's gratified that Kris's personal preference in dildos appears to bend towards the realistic, and more gratified that preference is for eight thick inches closely resembling his own cock. He's still not entirely personally convinced that dildos with balls are ever a good idea.

"Really," Kris agrees. "It's... It's just the way it feels. Have you tried the VixSkin stuff?"

"Not at that price," Adam says bluntly. 

Kris chuckles, smile warming. (Adam's not sure if that's for him or for the dildo, and that's one weird feeling.) "It's worth it. I've got a couple of others, smoother ones, where you can fix the base, but this stuff... Oh, hey, wait there?"

"Not going anywhere," Adam promises. "Are you?"

"I'm coming back." Putting the box back on the shelf, Kris backs away a couple of steps before turning to go, and returns a moment later with a disturbingly floppy looking dildo in his hand. 

A big, thick, realistically veiny, floppy dildo. It doesn't look erotic. In fact, if Adam were pressed for a word to describe it, he'd go for _dismembered_. "Seriously?"

"Seriously." Kris offers it up, his hand flat, the dildo drooping off both sides. "Give it a squeeze."

"That is _not_ what I usually do to a nice big cock," Adam points out, and reaches out cautiously to touch it. Just the tips of his fingers, stroking curiously along the top of the thing. It's a lot softer than anything he'd usually even think of using, giving instead of resisting when he presses lightly. It's also not completely smooth, and something about the combination makes it feel less cool than smooth silicone. 

"Good, right?" Kris says.

Adam arches his eyebrows, strokes the thing again, then follows Kris's suggestion and closes his fingers around it, squeezing gently. Soft, but something inside it's firmer. "Weird," he decides.

"You said that about the sleeve, too." Kris wraps his own hand around the shaft of the dildo, up close to Adam's. It's a smooth move, one that looks like familiarity, and one that wakes a corresponding tense warmth in Adam's cock.

Resisting the urge to put his free hand in his jeans to adjust, Adam lets go, leaving the dildo in Kris's hands. "The sleeve was worth trying," he concedes. "This is way beyond my experimental budget."

Kris grins. "Quality's worth the investment, man."

"Which is why I moisturize," Adam says.

~~

"Basic," Adam repeats to himself, studying the shelves. Beside him, Kris is quiet, hands in his pockets, head tilted and Adam's well aware that those big brown eyes are fixed on him, not on the stock. "Basic... You seriously don't think cuffs are basic?"

Kris shrugs. "Not much use for them on my own."

"Oh, honey, I thought you had imagination." Adam hooks his forefinger under the links of a pair of plain black leather wrist cuffs with steel buckles, and lifts them off the rack to hold them up. "You don't have to use them to fix wrists together."

"I don't?"

Adam gives himself a moment to enjoy that Kris has taken the discussion of cuffs from the possibly theoretical and directly to the personal and immediate, and smiles, turning the ones he's holding to snap the clip free and separate the cuffs. "Wear them separately for the weight. Just use one and fasten one hand out the way. Use ankle cuffs and fix your feet together or to something. Just because there's no one else there doesn't mean you can't enjoy the way it feels when you can't move."

Reaching out, Kris traces the metal buckle with one finger. "Even though I could unfasten them any time?"

"But you don't," Adam says softly. "You don't, because you don't want to. Because you can, so you don't have to. You set your own limits."

Kris's hand goes still for a moment, then he rests his hand flat on the cuffs. "I've never..."

It's almost an achievement for Adam to have found something Kris hasn't tried, but it's not one he's going to gloat over. "Never on your own or never with anyone else?"

"Never at all," Kris admits, his head bent forwards as he rubs his thumb against the metal again, never quite touching Adam's skin. 

"You could always borrow mine if you want to try them," Adam says quietly. "Or there are velcro ones, fabric ones that are gonna be easier than new leather."

"I thought yours were pink and fluffy." Kris looks up, grinning.

"One pair is," Adam admits. "For actually holding someone in place, I like leather."

"You _wear_ leather," Kris points out.

Adam presses the cuff into Kris's hand. "Sometimes I do that, too."

~~

Kris refuses to let Adam talk him into the nylon and velcro cuffs, but he does hold onto the leather wrist cuffs. He's also holding a plain black fabric blindfold when Adam catches sight of something across the aisle.

"Cock rings," he says happily, making a beeline for them. "These definitely count as basics."

"Cock rings do but prostate massagers don't?" Kris follows more slowly, still holding the blindfold.

"Prostate massagers are specialized buttplugs," Adam explains. "Specialized means not basic. Cock rings are simple, single purpose. Basic. I mean, unless you're getting into things like gates of hell. That's not basic."

"And they're awkward to get off," Kris says absently. "I guess that means you use these, right?"

"And now I'm thinking about you wearing gates of hell," Adam admits, marveling. "I never really saw any point in them before. I mean, they're fiddly to get on, you have to come before they can come off, pretty much, and they're a bitch to clean, but..."

"But I don't have one," Kris says, laughing. "Not gonna happen, man."

Adam sighs and stops thinking about picking one up. "Tell me you've at least got a basic cock ring."

"This was meant to be about what you've got." Kris moves the blindfold into the same hand as the cuffs and moves closer to the display.

"Well..." Adam grins, turning to give Kris a clearer view. "I've got three. I've tried more, but I don't really like the fixed ones. Give me a snap any day over a solid metal ring, or even the silicone stretchy ones."

"And leather, right?" Nudging his shoulder against Adam's arm, Kris closes the gap between them again.

"It's like you've met me," Adam says. "Seriously, it's uncanny."

"Well..." Kris draws the word out, brightness in his eyes betraying that he's knowingly echoing Adam. "I guess they don't make pink fluffy cock rings."

Adam stops, startled, and laughs, bending to kiss Kris's forehead. "You know, I never even looked."

"I'm gonna have to now." Kris nudges against Adam again, slower, more deliberate, then sighs softly and leans in against him. "Like, everything pink and fluffy is now just associated with you."

"And black leather," Adam adds firmly.

"And black leather," Kris repeats.

Slowly, carefully, Adam slides his arm around Kris's shoulders, suppressing the urge to wriggle with happiness when Kris just moves into him. "So, when you try out those cuffs..."

Kris burrows his head into Adam's chest, then lifts his hand to study the black leather cuffs. "Well, I guess if the association's there..."

"You're sure I can't persuade you to a cock ring as well?" Adam says hopefully. "You know, if you're all about drawing it out..."

And he really, really has no objection to Kris associating him with things that go on his cock.

Tilting his head back, Kris gives Adam a slow, deliciously filthy grin. "Man, you're the one who's assuming I don't already have one."

"Just one?" Adam sternly tells his cock to behave. His jeans are definitely too tight for any more of a reaction than the pulse of heat that comes just from the expression on Kris's face.

"Two," Kris admits, grin shifting to something more thoughtful. "But only one of them's black leather."

"Use that one," Adam says instantly, before he can think better of it. Before he can get worried about Kris's reaction.

Kris's reaction is a moment of hesitation followed by a steady nod. "Maybe I will."

~~

"Church?" Brad says incredulously. "He's meeting us after church?"

Cassidy grins and stretches his arm out along the back of the couch for Brad to snuggle under. "Don't knock it, it meant you got your beauty sleep this morning."

"I always get my beauty sleep," Brad says, crossing his legs so his foot rests against Cassidy's shin. "Because I don't get up on a Sunday and go to _church_."

"No one asked you to," Adam returns, picking up his coffee. He's developing a taste for soy-milk, but even for Cassidy he's not pursuing the decaf route. 

"Still." Brad purses his lips. "Church. Are you sure this whole not having sex thing isn't actually celibacy and he's going to take vows?"

"I'm pretty sure he would have said." It's still something that sounds familiar, but not for Kris. Adam's also fairly sure that monks aren't meant to have as many sex toys as Kris does. He takes a drink, trying not to let it take root as an actual worry, because it's Brad, and if he took half the things Brad said seriously, he'd be a neurotic mess. "Anyway, you can ask him yourself."

Sundays have always been time for Adam to meet up with his friends. Just this week, it's also going to be more time with Kris. 

Church means that Kris is dressed more formally than Adam's seen before. Tailored pants and an actual button-down shirt, one that sits closer to the lines of his body than Kris's usual casual shirts and plaid overshirts. One of a light enough, thin enough fabric that Adam is nearly certain that he can see chest hair through it, some lightly curling in the vee where Kris's collar is unbuttoned.

Adam stands and raises a hand to catch Kris's attention, getting a grin and wave in return as Kris tilts his head towards the counter and the line he joins. A moment later, Adam's phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to see a new message waiting. "Kris wants to know if anyone needs another drink?"

"I'll take a long cool drink of _that_ ," Brad says, staring without any pretense at subtlety. "You never told us he was hot."

"Didn't I?" Adam sits down again, crossing his legs and trying not to feel smug. "You mean you thought I'd get hung up on a guy who wasn't?"

"You said cute," Cassidy says, head tilted in a way that tells Adam he's already assessing Kris in terms of whatever he's been designing recently. 

Adam taps out a quick
    
    
    we're good thanks

and leans back. "He's both."

"He is," Brad agrees with a nod. "Okay, so now I get what you're so fixated on."

"I showed you photos," Adam says mildly. "And you really don't. Not until you talk to him."

Cassidy laughs, pulling Brad back against him. "You really have got it bad."

He really has, and what's worse, he doesn't want it any other way. "I just need," he says more quietly, "to know if I'm the only one. If I'm imagining that he's interested because I want him to be."

"Bad," Brad repeats. "We can so do that."

Given how long Adam's known Brad, and how well Adam knows Brad, that sounds a lot more ominous than reassuring, but he doesn't have any more time to issue warnings because Kris is walking up to them with a warm smile and a hint of tension through his shoulders that Adam instantly wants to hug away. He doesn't, partly because he's pretty sure that Kris can handle it and partly because he's not sure how much contact Kris is going to be good with in front of other people Adam knows.

"So, hey," Kris says.

Putting down both his phone and his coffee, Adam stands up to make the introductions and urges Kris to the end of the couch closer to Brad and Cassidy, despite his instinct to keep between them. "All done with church?"

"For this week," Kris agrees. "Y'all don't go?"

"Jewish," Adam says promptly.

"Atheist," Cassidy says with a grin.

"Don't know don't care," Brad says, scooting forwards on the couch to lean towards Kris. "So you're the monk that Adam's obsessed with?"

"Not obsessed," Adam protests.

"And not a monk," Kris says, apparently unruffled, though he shifts his leg to press against Adam's. "You must be the ex with the pink fluffy handcuffs."

Brad's mouth hangs open for a good five seconds before snapping closed, and Adam knows he's going to be answering for that later. "Must I?"

"That'd be my guess." Kris takes a sip of his coffee, tension through his thigh. "Because you're the one important enough for me to meet."

"Pink and fluffy doesn't dictate that," Adam says hastily. 

"Handcuffs do," Kris says mildly, not looking away from Brad. 

Brad narrows his eyes. "So, Kristopher Allen, what are your intentions towards our boy here?"

Adam fights the urge to hide. Cassidy bursts out laughing.

~~

"So those are your friends," Kris says thoughtfully, pulling sunglasses out of his pocket as they head out into the afternoon sun. "Interesting people."

"Yeah," Adam says weakly, sliding his own shades into place. It could, he supposed, have gone worse. It could also have gone a lot better. "Maybe I should have warned you."

"I knew they'd be..." Kris pauses. "Different."

"Different?" Adam turns his head to look down at Kris in case Kris's expression makes any more sense than his words. 

"Free thinkers." Kris nods, a slow smile curving his lips. "Yeah, free thinkers. Individuals. I like them."

Whatever Adam had expected, that hadn't been it. Most people like Cassidy, at least on first meeting. Most people likewise dislike Brad on first meeting. For most of them, it saves time. "You like them?"

"I like them," Kris repeats. "They're honest."

"That's one way to put it," Adam agrees, not quite under his breath. 

"And they care about you," Kris says, sliding his hand into Adam's and taking hold. 

"Is that a nice way of saying that they're rude and protective as fuck?" Because that's about how Adam would have summarized the encounter.

Kris laughs, squeezes Adam's hand, and starts walking down the block. "That too, but, man, they wouldn't be if they didn't care about you."

Adam matches his pace to Kris, slower than usual. "You know, it usually takes people months to get that about Brad."

"Maybe I care about you too," Kris says lightly.

Adam's so startled by the casual declaration that he completely forgets to say anything in return. By the time he's thought of anything to say, they've reached Kris's car, parked around the corner of the block, shaded by the buildings. "So when do I get to meet your friends?"

There's quiet for a moment as Kris finds his car keys and fumbles the lock, opens the door and holds it that way to let the heat inside the car escape. Adam catches a glimpse of a jacket on the back seat - a jacket, and a dry cleaner's bag that looks like it's got another suit inside, and papers scattered across the seat and spilling down onto the floor. 

"How about tomorrow night?" Kris's voice interrupts Adam's study of the contents of Kris's car and he blinks, straightens up, is glad for a moment that his sunglasses are dark and reflective enough that Kris can't possibly know exactly where he was looking. 

Monday nights have become date nights. Adam doesn't work, Kris doesn't work, it's almost at the point where Adam avoids making other plans even if he hasn't agreed something with Kris, because Monday night in his head is Kris night. Just Kris night. Not Kris and his friends night. "Tomorrow's Monday."

"Gold star," Kris says with a grin. "I was gonna call you, I don't usually but this slot opened up at an open mic night, I don't know if you're interested but I'm gonna go down, play a few songs..."

"I'm interested," Adam says instantly. "Are you kidding me? Of course I'm interested, oh my God, Kris, is this is a new thing? Where is it? Do you need me to bring support? I can bring support. I can _be_ support."

Kris chuckles and slides his sunglasses down to look over them at Adam. "Maybe don't bring Brad. Not this time."

"No Brad," Adam promises. "But you're okay with me being there?"

"I kind of want you there," Kris says, "or I wouldn't have mentioned it."

Come hell or high water or audition or personal crisis, Adam's determined to be there if Kris wants him. "You got it."

"And I was gonna eat with the guys first, but if you want to meet us after...?" Kris's aviators slip another half inch, precariously balanced on the end of his nose.

Adam catches them with his index finger and gently pushes them back up into place, then bends his head to kiss Kris equally gently. "Just text me the time and place and I'll be there. Without Brad."

Kris nods, his shoulders lifting as he takes a breath. "Maybe buy me a drink after."

"Honey," Adam says, in all sincerity, "I'll even drive you home."

"And maybe," Kris says more quietly, "I'll let you."


	4. Chapter 4

True to his word, Adam doesn't bring Brad. He's mostly avoiding contact with Brad because whatever Brad's assessment of Kris is, Adam knows that it's going to be brutally honest and he's not sure he can deal with brutally honest if it doesn't match his hopes. Cassidy's more likely to take his time to consider his opinions before sharing them, but Cassidy's used to Adam being busy on a Monday evening. 

It means that Adam shows up at the bar with Alisan by his side, and Alisan's practically vibrating with glee. She's also wearing heels tall enough that she nearly comes up to Adam's shoulder, which makes it a lot more comfortable for him to wrap an arm around her shoulders as she curls hers around his waist, only letting go to get through the door and inside.

Adam's decided to wear lower heels than usual, which is only partly to do with the fact that Kris is closer to Alisan's height than his own, and the rest to do with the fact that he strongly suspects that any bar Kris is likely to play in is one where his usual platform boots, leggings and heavy makeup would mark him out as a target. It's not that Adam can't handle himself in a fight, he just prefers to avoid making a scene somewhere that Kris might want to go back to, which entirely explains the skin tight jeans and washed-soft black shirt that he's opted for.

"This is the guy, right?" Alisan asks for the hundredth time, bouncing up to kiss Adam's cheek as he tries to steer her towards an empty table with a clear view of the tiny stage. "The one from the thing? The answer?"

"Yes, he's the guy from the speed dating thing," Adam agrees, pulling out a chair for her and waiting for her to sit.

Alisan beams. "So are you going to start listening to me more often?"

"Probably not." Adam grins and pats her shoulder, bending to kiss her cheek in return. "But I will buy you a drink."

He's going to need it, if all the acts are like this. The bar's quiet, and there's nothing to hide the sounds of the girl on stage, her guitar just slightly flat, her voice just slightly sharp. Adam devoutly hopes that Kris is better, because he's going to have to be honest.

"Make it a double," Alisan says firmly, flicking a quick glance towards the stage.

Adam flourishes a bow to her, laughs at her expression, and comes back from the bar with a double vodka tonic in each hand just as the girl on the stage finishes up. There's a desultory round of applause as she hugs her guitar and sidles away, then a tall guy in a black shirt hefts a keyboard onto a stand that Adam didn't notice before, picks up a guitar from the side of the stage, and (much to Adam's relief) spends a minute or so tuning it before plugging in to the amp and moving up to the mic. "Ladies and gentleman, Kris Allen."

Alisan looks expectantly at Adam.

Adam slides a glass across the table towards her. "No, that's not him."

"Shame, he's kinda hot." She sighs, turning her attention back to the stage. 

The tall (and yes, Adam will admit it, also kind of hot) guy up there has moved the mic, lowering the stand so that the mic's bent over the keyboard, about Kris's head height. Adam sits up straighter, tension locking his shoulders as Kris walks up onto the stage and behind the keyboard, bending slightly to get closer to the mic and adjust it. 

Once he's satisfied with the height, he flashes a quick grin towards the audience. "Hey, y'all. Just going to play you a couple of songs, hope you enjoy it."

Alisan's hand finds Adam's, and he grips tight, and... that's a Michael Jackson track. Adam recognizes it and doesn't recognize it at the same time, 'Man in the Mirror' reworked to suit Kris's voice, and fuck, it suits Kris's voice. Perfectly in tune, thank God, slightly husky, warm and strong, and Adam falls into it, his drink ignored to soak in the music instead. He doesn't recognize the second song at all, but the third starts out as 'Ain't No Sunshine' and turns into an orgasm set to music.

Maybe Kris isn't an entirely natural performer, but when he forgets, when he loses himself in the song, when he catches hot guy's eye and breaks into a grin, when he closes his eyes and lets his voice play with the melody, it's one of the hottest things Adam's ever seen or heard. By the end of the three songs, Adam's half in a daze, and Alisan has to squeeze his hand to break him out of it enough to applaud.

"Breathe," she says sharply, still staring. "Holy shit, Adam, you found _him_ at a speed dating event?"

"He lost a bet," Adam says hazily, picks up his drink and drains half of it before putting it down again. "And if he's only doing this at open mic nights, it's a _crime_."

Alisan reaches for her own glass. "You hadn't heard him sing before?"

"Or play." Adam shakes his head. The only reason he's not headed for the stage to help Kris clear and congratulate him is that he's pretty sure that standing up would cause him actual physical pain. His jeans were not designed for him to get quite so turned on. "He's... fuck, Alisan."

"Perfect," she supplies. "And coming over. You'd better introduce me, mister."

"I can't remember _my_ name, never mind yours." Adam takes another swallow of his drink, stronger further down the glass, and welcomes the kick of vodka curling hard heat through his throat and chest.

"I bet you can remember his," Alisan says slyly, and puts Adam to shame by actually standing up when Kris reaches their table, tall dark and studly in tow. 

Kris doesn't seem to mind that Adam's not standing up, making a beeline right for him and wrapping around him for a hug. Kris is warmer than Adam expects, skin hot even through his shirt, face slightly damp when he presses it against Adam's throat, and Adam holds him tightly a moment before letting go. "You are amazing," he says sincerely. "I mean, wow, Kris, why haven't I heard you sing before?"

"Maybe you weren't listening." Kris grins, standing back to look at Alisan, who also turns a pointed look on Adam.

"Right, yeah," Adam says hastily. "Kris, this is Alisan, she came to keep me company tonight. Alisan, this is Kris."

"Pleasure." She holds her hand out. "I've heard a lot about you."

Kris takes it, shakes it, and gives her a warm smile. "I'm not asking."

Alisan laughs. "And clever, too."

"Just a decent sense of self-preservation, ma'am," Kris says, and Alisan practically preens at the honorific, her smile widening. "Alisan, this is my friend Cale. Adam, Cale."

Left hand on the back of his chair, Adam stands slowly to offer his hand to Cale. Cale, who'd been the one to tell Kris they were dating. Cale, who plays guitar for Kris to sing. "You're a good musician."

"And he writes with me, too," Kris says, happily oblivious to Cale attempting to crush Adam's fingers.

Adam grits his teeth and holds his smile. "You guys wrote that middle song?"

"Together," Cale says, finally releasing Adam's hand.

Adam flexes his fingers but manages not to shake his hand to relieve the ache. "It's great. Catchy."

"Thanks," Kris says, looking back at the stage where the next act is setting up: another girl with a guitar. "Someone promised me a drink?"

"I did," Adam says gratefully, rubbing his fingers against his ass as he pulls his wallet out. "What's your poison, baby?"

Cale's eyebrows rise, but Kris doesn't bat an eyelid. "Just coke for me," he says cheerfully. "I'm driving."

Of course Kris is driving. Adam stamps the half-hope that he'd get to see Kris drink a little and relax a little, even though Kris seems generally permanently laid back, and nods. "Cale?"

"I'll take a beer," Cale says. "Thanks."

"No problem." Adam does his best to keep his smile warm and easy, looking down to check on Alisan's glass. She taps it, and nods emphatically. "No spilling secrets while I'm gone, okay?"

"Secrets?" Kris grins and slides into Adam's vacated chair next to Alisan. "I'll trade you."

"Deal," Alisan says instantly.

Adam gets while the going is good.

~~

"And then Kris called and I figure, we haven't seen each other for months, might as well come over and visit the ocean," Cale says with a grin, gesturing with his beer. 

Kris sputters, sitting forwards and away from Adam again. "The ocean?"

"The ocean," Cale repeats, holding his hand up.

Laughing, Kris lifts his hand to smack against it. "Yeah, yeah, you love me."

Ridiculously, Adam does, but he's keeping that to himself, especially when Kris is looking this happy and he's just had confirmation that Cale doesn't actually live in LA. "It's a beautiful ocean."

"Oh my God, Adam, I cannot believe you said that out loud." Alisan digs her elbow into his side, curling closer. "Seriously?"

"It is a beautiful ocean," Kris agrees, smile edging smug.

"Yeah, and the bars aren't bad, either," Cale agrees, draining his bottle and setting it down. "But it's time for me to call it a night."

Kris nods, leaning into Adam again. "You good to get back to the hotel?"

"He's not staying with you?" Adam says, before he can stop himself. He'd assumed that Kris's friend would be staying with Kris, but if Cale's in a hotel, that just makes it more of a shame that Kris is driving tonight. 

"You're kidding me, right?" Cale says. "Have you seen how tiny his place is?"

"It's nearly bigger than mine." Adam wraps his arm around Kris's shoulders, reveling in the way Kris relaxes against him, warm and easy. 

Alisan snorts. "Honey, even my place is bigger than yours."

"You're not an understudy," Adam says, wrinkling his nose at her. "And I think Kris's place is bigger than yours, too."

Honestly, there's not much in it, but if Alisan's playing that card, Adam's going to insist on accuracy.

"I didn't know we were playing mine's bigger than yours," Cale says with a chuckle.

"Then I've lost before we've started," Alisan says cheerfully, and wriggles out of her chair. "Come on, Cale. We can share a cab."

"I need a cab, too," Adam protests

Alisan pats his shoulder, stands up, and looks pointedly at Cale. He grins, offering her an arm. "You're good to take my guitar back and keep it safe?"

"Are you guys even going in the same direction?" Kris asks, not moving.

"We'll find out," Alisan says, and almost drags Cale away towards the exit.

Adam picks up his glass, takes a drink, and sets it down again. "I don't know if they're hooking up or trying to give us time alone."

"Or both," Kris says, watching as Cale insists on holding the door open for Alisan. "You don't really need a cab tonight."

"These heels may be lower than I usually wear, but I'm not walking _that_ far in them," Adam says firmly. 

"You don't have to." Kris rolls his head, grinning up at Adam. "Help me get the instruments home and I'll give you a ride."

~~

For all that Adam's been hoping for more time with Kris, more private time with Kris, he ends up spending most of the drive to Kris's place trying to adjust to the fact that Kris sings, really fucking well, and that Kris is an amazing performer as well as amazingly hot. Kris just grins and hums to himself, fingers tapping out a rhythm to a silent song as he drives, only stopping when he pulls up outside his building. 

Adam blinks, shakes his head, and reaches down to release his seatbelt. "So, keyboard first?"

"Keyboard first," Kris agrees with a chuckle. "How are you at going backwards?"

"In heels?" Adam glances down at his boots and sighs. "Just call me Ginger Rogers."

"It's going to take both of us to balance it, Ginger," Kris says cheerfully.

Adam winces. "Ginger _Rogers_ ," he stresses. "Your building has a working elevator, right?"

"Right." Kris tilts his head, studying Adam for a moment before offering Adam a lopsided smile. "Ms. Rogers."

"Better," Adam says, relieved, and gets out of the car.

It does take both of them to balance the keyboard, which is heavier than it looks. Kris slings a bag over his shoulder as well, and once they've taken the keyboard up, it takes another trip to fetch Cale's guitar and the keyboard stand, which then leaves Adam standing slightly awkwardly in the middle of Kris's main room. 

"So," he says, as lightly as he can manage. "About that ride..."

Kris snorts and pushes past him to close the door. "Not that kind of ride."

"I wasn't even thinking of that," Adam protests instantly, genuinely innocent. Now he's thinking of that, of course he is, because he can't not think about it when Kris has mentioned it and he's alone with Kris and Kris is right there and did anyone mention amazingly hot performer?

"Still." Kris shrugs, brushing up against Adam again as he moves back into the room and Adam's entirely sure that wasn't completely necessary, he's not standing close enough to anything that Kris is forced to touch him, which means Kris is choosing to touch him, and fuck, he didn't have that much to drink, he shouldn't be feeling quite so lightheaded. 

Adam takes a deep breath and tries to center himself. Doing so while continuing to watch Kris means it's a futile attempt, but he's still trying. "I can call a cab."

"Or you could stay a while," Kris says. 

Fuck. Temptation is evidently out to get Adam tonight, in the form of a hot southern musician that Adam's been trying so hard not to put pressure on. "I... could?"

"You could," Kris repeats, voice lower, a little thicker, accent pulling the vowels out slower, and then Kris puts his hand on Adam's chest and looks up through impossibly luxuriant lashes.

Exercising immense strength of will, Adam doesn't whimper. He does rest his own hand on Kris's back, trying to ignore the pleased rumble of sound that Kris gives him for that contact and the way Kris's back arches, pliant under his touch. "I need you to be very clear, Kristopher, about what you're offering right now."

"I thought..." Kris pauses to lick his lips, head tilting back a little further, and that's both more and less devastating. "Maybe another demo."

Adam bites his lip as if the sharp immediacy of it can in any way distract him from the way his cock is achingly hard in his jeans. "What do you want to show me, baby?"

"Both of us," Kris corrects quietly. "Last time, you showed me something as well."

What it felt like to play with fire, mostly, as far as Adam remembers, and the flames are burning higher tonight. "What do you want me to show you, then?"

Kris grins and slides his hand higher, catching enough of Adam's shirt to take hold. "Remember those handcuffs?"

~~

This is not exactly what Adam expected to be demonstrating with the handcuffs. "It gets easier when they've softened in a bit," he explains through gritted teeth, his right wrist bracing the cuff against his knee as he tries to wrestle the strap through the buckle, tattoo staring steadily up at him while the leather tries to refuse to bend to cover it. "And really, these need to shape to your wrists if you're going to be the one using them."

"But you're showing me how," Kris says confidently, dropping down to one knee next to Adam. "Want me to do that?"

"If I'm showing you, I'm showing you," Adam insists, even though God, yes, he wants Kris to help. He presses the strap through, bends the leather down, then curls over to catch the strap with his teeth and tug it closed, one finger trying to work the buckle prong through. It's nowhere near as snug as he prefers cuffs to be, but at least they're finally both on and tight enough that they can't slip off over his hands.

"Yeah, you're showing me." Kris chuckles, moving around in front of Adam. "So then you fasten them to something?"

"One of them, yeah." And occasionally both, but Adam's not quite sure that Kris is ready for the possibilities of chain to link cuffs together and then loop around something. "My bed's got posts that work."

Kris turns to look at his own bed, head tilted thoughtfully. It's nothing fancy, but it's got a footboard with a post at either end, and Adam can't help noticing those. "That could work."

Adam hesitates. "Work how?"

Kris bites his lip. "I've got a scarf that could go in the rings on one of those. Or both, but you said..."

"I couldn't do both on my own." Not tightly enough to actually restrict anything, anyway. "Kris, are you...?"

"I want," Kris says quietly, "I want to see that. And I want you to see me but not touch and just... just see me."

"I see you." Adam's pretty sure he can't see anything else, doesn't want to. "I can see you, honey."

Kris shakes his head and reaches out to hook his fingers in the D rings of the cuffs, which turn towards the pull as easily as Adam does. "I want you to see more."

It turns out that Adam really has no problem with that.

~~

Kris's scarf probably isn't strong enough to hold Adam if he really wants to get away, but Adam has no reason at all to want to get away. He loops the scarf around Kris's bedpost, knots the other end around the ring in the left cuff, and settles cross-legged on the floor by the foot of Kris's bed. "Didn't you already perform for me tonight?"

"Cale and I performed for everyone there," Kris says steadily, grips the hem of his shirt, and pulls it off in a fluid movement that nearly brings Adam up onto his knees following the instinctive need to be closer to Kris's skin. "This one... I want this to be from me, for you. Just me, just you."

"Kris," Adam tries again, swallows, and wraps his right hand around the scarf holding his left hand in place.

"Adam," Kris returns, quirks a smile, and squats down in front of Adam, coming down to Adam's level. "Want me to stop?"

"I have no idea what you're starting," Adam admits. He's pretty sure he doesn't want it to stop, because seeing more of Kris is not in any way going to be a bad thing, but he'd kind of like to know what's going on. "So no, but... it's not like I can't get out of this, because if that's what you were aiming at..."

Kris chuckles, rocks forwards, and kisses Adam. It's unexpected enough that Adam doesn't respond for a few seconds, held still in startlement before leaning in, nipping at Kris's lower lip before licking in, slow and warm. It's a little weird not being able to touch Kris as well, but not weird enough to distract Adam from the fact that kissing Kris gets better every time. Even better, with Kris initiating it.

Not so much better when Kris breaks away long before Adam wants to surrender the kiss, though.

"You kept saying," Kris says quietly, "only if I want to. Only if we both want to. I figured this way, you're gonna be sure that I want to."

"Want to what?" Adam licks his lips, taking a slow breath and trying to convince his cock to show just a little less interest in the situation. 

Kris rests his hand on Adam's knee. It's probably for support, but Adam's still glad of the contact, the heat clear through his jeans. "I bought some more stuff with you this week. You wanna see me use it?"

Adam's rapidly losing the battle of wills with his cock. "The blindfold?"

"The blindfold," Kris agrees. "I can't see you, you can see me but you can't touch me."

"Are you going to touch me?" Adam asks hopefully.

Kris laughs, and leans more heavily on Adam's knee, lifting his free hand to slide his fingers into Adam's hair. "Probably not if I can't see you."

"Right. Yeah, that would be awkward." And Adam's blaming his cock for missing that leap of logic, too. "But I can see you?"

"That's the point," Kris says steadily. "You see me. You watch me. We talked about some more things, too."

Adam swallows hard. They talked about a lot of things, and he's pretty sure Kris isn't about to bring them all out, but... "Show me?"

Kris bites his lip, shifts onto one knee, and pulls his hand back to push into his own jeans. Adam looks, of course he looks, a slow delighted smile spreading across his face. "Just like that?"

"Just getting comfortable," Kris says with a grin. "Just wait there."

Adam stretches out the fingers of his left hand, cuff firmly in place around his wrist, and wiggles them at Kris. "Not going anywhere."

"Good." Kris leans in to kiss him again, still too brief, hand sliding higher up Adam's thigh when he does, then shuffles back on both knees to pull a box out from under his bed. 

Adam can see enough to recognize that it's the same box that Kris brought out last time he'd been in Kris's apartment, but he can't actually see into the box, and he's not sure if Kris has angled it that way on purpose or if it's pure coincidence. Even leaning to the side doesn't get him a clear view, and going up onto his knees only gets him the sight of Kris's forearms - and the sight of Kris's face crinkled in amusement. Unrepentant, Adam shrugs and grins, sitting back on his heels again. "You said you wanted me to see."

"I want you to see _me_ ," Kris says, pauses, and takes a breath deep enough to lift his shoulders, lowering them a little more slowly. "Okay. Right."

"I want me to see you, too," Adam says earnestly. "How much do I get to see?"

Kris bites his lower lip, then worries it for a moment with his teeth. "Black leather?"

Adam can _feel_ his eyes widening, his focus blurring for a moment, light-headed, because surely Kris can't mean... holy shit, Kris actually does. "Black leather," he confirms, blinking, and yes, Kris really truly does mean what Adam barely dares hope for, because that's unmistakably a black leather cock ring that comes out of the box and onto the bed, swiftly followed by the blindfold, a bottle of lube, and ... "Holy _shit_ , Kris..."

"It worked last time," Kris says with a grin verging on completely filthy, and Adam falls deeper in love with that expression than with the dildo that Kris has put onto the bed beside everything else.

"I'm not sure I even know what you mean by that," Adam admits, "but I'm more sure that I don't actually care."

Kris closes the box, leans his hands on it, and looks directly into Adam's eyes. "I'm going to show you how I use it."

Whatever Adam did in a past life to deserve this, it was very well worth it. "On you?"

"On me," Kris says, his grin fading a little. "I mean, if you want..."

"I want," Adam says instantly. "Holy shit, are you kidding me? I want. I want so much." So much that his jeans are getting distinctly tighter. "Show me?"

Kris nods, pushes the box back under the bed, then stands up, still watching Adam. It's already way more than Adam expected to be able to see tonight, this week, maybe ever, and he tightens his grip on the scarf as a reminder to himself that he can't move to follow Kris and touch. He can see, but he can't touch.

No matter how much he wants to.

Then again, Kris never said he couldn't _talk_. "Fuck, I wish I could touch you right now." Touch and taste, but start with touch, splay his hands over all that invitingly smooth skin, explore the rise of perfectly defined pecs, the strength promised by the curve of muscle over Kris's shoulders, the dark sprinkling of hair scattered across Kris's chest. It's all temptation, and the longing Adam's feeling is strong and sudden enough to startle even himself.

Kris shakes his head, biting his lip again on something that looks like his smirk trying to escape again. "C'mon, man, you're meant to be watching. How are you gonna pay attention to what you see if you get yourself distracted?"

"I like getting distracted," Adam says wistfully, catches Kris's eye and laughs. "No, I'll be good, I promise. Paying all the attention. All yours."

No matter how much Adam thinks he might prefer to be seeing Kris naked for the first time because he's getting to undress Kris - and touch - this way is better. This way is _better_ because it's what Kris wants, and Kris wanting to get naked and have Adam watch him is a thousand times hotter than Kris doing something that Adam can't be entirely confident that Kris wants as much as he does.

"You're going to need to take the rest off, too," he says helpfully. "If you're going to use those. I promise I'll pay very close attention."

"Right," Kris agrees, smile breaking free into a laugh as he settles his hands on his waistband to take his jeans off. And his socks. And his boxers. 

The boxers are so not a surprise. Kris wears his jeans loose enough that there's room for nearly anything under them, including the loose cotton boxers he kicks onto the floor, and it makes sense that Kris wears loose underwear under loose jeans. Nothing snug, nothing restricting, nothing revealing. It makes what he reveals when they do come off less predictable, and Adam forgives himself instantly for leaning forwards some for a better look.

He can't touch, but he can look. Looking's the idea, and Kris definitely repays being looked at. He's gorgeous, hipbones a smooth line under equally smooth, lightly tanned skin, muscles defined enough that there's a noticeable vee where his stomach planes down to his hips, and his cock...

Adam's seen plenty of cock in his life. He wouldn't go so far as to call himself a connoisseur, but he's seen enough to appreciate a pretty cock when he sees one, and he's looking at one now. Half-hard already, a couple of tones darker than Kris's thighs, satisfyingly thick, long enough for Adam to appreciate without being big enough that it would be a struggle to fit into Adam's mouth. (Which is watering, because he can't stop himself from thinking about that, even if it's not going to happen. At least, not any time soon.) Around Kris's cock, the dark hair is neatly trimmed, framing it beautifully, his balls hanging down full and inviting.

Biting his lip, Adam tightens his grip on the scarf again to stop himself from reaching out, nails digging into his own palm. "Do I get to comment, at least?"

"Guess I can't stop you." Kris settles back, resting his ass on the side of the bed, feet set apart, thighs spread, hands behind him. It's a gorgeous display, and one that Adam very much enjoys, glancing up towards Kris's face to check in on him. There's a little uncertainty there, his lips pressed together, eyes darker, but there's no hesitation for all the self-consciousness.

Adam swallows back his instinctive reaction, which is that it's a crying shame that no one, or specifically him, is tapping that on a regular basis. It's Kris's choice what he does or doesn't do with his beautiful cock. Right now, what Kris is doing is showing it to Adam, so Adam lets himself take another look, nice and slow, making no effort to hide the way his attention lingers.

Kris is watching him right back. Kris is looking just as focused on Adam as Adam is on Kris, and when Adam looks back up to meet Kris's eyes, Kris's lips are parted, his cheeks are flushed, but his eyes stay open, steady when Adam takes a deep breath, trying to relax and persuade his cock to calm down. He could make a flip comment, he could rhapsodize over the beauties of Kris's body, but he's more focused on not freaking Kris out, because he doesn't want Kris to stop.

Or get dressed.

Ever.

"You're gorgeous," he says, simply and honestly.

Color stains Kris's chest, spilling slowly up over his throat, but his cock hardens as well, and Adam makes a mental note that compliments are allowed. Compliments are good. 

"That's..." Kris stops, clears his throat and swallows. "Not the point, Adam."

"It's still true." Adam tucks his knees up in front of him in an attempt to hide the erection that he's entirely sure Kris has already noticed and rests his chin on his knees, neck arched so he can keep looking up at Kris. "Fuck, the things I'd do to you. With you. If you wanted me to."

"Not the point either," Kris chides, but his voice has dropped husky and low. "You wanted to see me use this stuff, right?"

Adam blinks, drags his eyes away from Kris's body and back to Kris's face, licking his lips. He can think of at least a thousand things he wants to do with Kris, but if the one on offer is to watch Kris get himself off, that's a good option. Seeing what Kris likes, seeing Kris come, is definitely going to be a good thing. "That's what you offered."

Kris bites his lip, smile still half-escaping. "And we both want it."

"We really do," Adam agrees with a nod, and then, because it really can't hurt and Kris is taking a little too long for his liking, "Please?"

That gets a chuckle and Kris slides down onto his knees with far more grace and fluidity than Adam expects, leaning in to kiss him, slow and deep, curling warmth through Adam's chest. "Pay attention, then. And tell me if you can't see anything."

"I thought you were gonna be not seeing." Adam grins, rocking forwards to kiss Kris in response. "You've got my attention, baby. Now show me what you're gonna do with it."

All of his attention, very definitely on Kris. Kris's body and Kris's movements as he shifts back and up onto the bed again, scoots back to reach for the lube and fuck, yes. Kris's hand around Kris's cock, slow twisting strokes that Adam's paying very close attention to for future reference. God, that's pretty, Kris hardening up under his own touch, his cock filling and thickening until Kris is apparently satisfied enough to reach for the leather strap, wrapping his left hand around his cock and balls to lift them and fasten the ring into place.

It's gorgeous. Adam's well aware of his own penchant for black leather, but it's never been as strong as seeing that strap around Kris's cock, stark black against flushed skin, like a bold outline to the base of Kris's erection. "Are you gonna stop if I talk to you?"

Kris pauses, which almost seems like it's going to be an answer until he wriggles back another couple of feet and drags a pillow behind him before leaning back against the headboard. "That kinda depends what you're going to say."

"Just how hot you look," Adam says. "I guess it means you'll know I'm watching."

Jackpot. Kris shivers, goes still, and when he looks down at Adam, his eyes are wider, darker. "You could do that."

"I really could," Adam says softly, crossing his ankles and tucking the loop of his arms around his knees as far as he can. "Go on, Kris. You're already amazing."

"You're already _some_ thing," Kris retorts, then his chest lifts as he takes a deep breath and Adam's attention shifts south. "Okay. Okay, just..."

Adam grins and leans his head against his forearm, curled up close to Kris's bedpost. "Take your time, baby."

There's something about the way that Kris puts the dildo and the lube up next to him then pats them a couple of times, like he's checking where they are. Something that's kind of sweet, weirdly endearing, which is not something that Adam's used to associating with hot naked boys putting blindfolds on. He's also not used to seeing said hot naked boys relaxing once the blindfold's on, either. Tension, anticipation, sure, but Kris just sighs and settles back, his neck arching slightly, his shoulders lowering, thighs easing apart as his knees splay out. 

It's a real shame not to be able to see Kris's eyes, but it's worth losing that to get that relaxation, and it doesn't mean Adam can't still see Kris's expression. He can see the way Kris's mouth softens, his lips part, his tongue slips out to slide over them, leaving the kind of sheen that has Adam tightening his hold on the scarf to stop himself reaching out for Kris. 

Adam doesn't really want to stop Kris from doing whatever he wants, when he wants it. He doesn't plan on giving orders, not really, but that's not going to stop him from making suggestions. "Gorgeous," he says softly. "Wider, Kris. Show me."

Much to Adam's delight, Kris does, giving a soft wordless murmur as he wriggles his hips and spreads his legs further apart. The shift in angle tilts his hips to give Adam a perfectly clear view of Kris's ass, the neat pucker of his hole looking way too small for the dildo that Kris has next to him. God, bodies are fantastic.

"Perfect," he tells Kris, tucking his legs sideways before moving to his knees, ass against his heels. He doesn't need to, sure, but it does mean he can move more easily to see more of Kris. "That's good, baby."

"Yeah?" Kris licks his lips again, reaching to his side, patting the covers for a moment before closing his hand on the lube, turning it over and flicking the lid open with his thumb.

"Oh, yeah." So good. Hypnotic, even, as Kris slicks his fingers and puts the lube down on his other side, hips canting up further and hand down between his legs to rub the tip of his finger over his hole. Slow and rhythmic, back and forwards until he presses in, smooth and without hesitation, adding another finger almost straight away. 

Adam swallows hard, bites his lip, and laces his fingers together, pressing his palms against each other. "That's it, sweetheart. God, _look_ at you, that's amazing, you're amazing, are you gonna..."

"Yeah," Kris breathes, shudders, and pushes his fingers deeper, hand twisting, and there's no mistaking the moment he hits his prostate, the moment sweat breaks across his chest and his breath catches, his back arches up and then higher, deeper. "Adam..."

" _Perfect_..." Adam repeats. "Come on, baby, let me see you take it."

Kris nods unsteadily, reaching out for the dildo and then patting around absently. 

"Other side," Adam prompts. "You put it there before. Right next to you, that's it, right there."

There, in Kris's dry hand, his slick one holding the dildo as he spills more lube over it, using his own hand as a guide. Adam isn't sure if it's because Kris can't see what he's doing or if it's what Kris always does, but Kris lingers, his hand slow as he strokes the lube down, back up to the head and rubbing in a pattern that Adam can feel echoed, phantom-like, over the head of his own cock, his hips working gently to push against his jeans. 

"That's..." Kris stops, his head dropping back against the pillows, head of the dildo pressed against his ass. Adam would swear that the one he'd felt before wasn't stiff enough to actually penetrate anything, but Kris doesn't seem to be having any problems, pushing in, pushing down, steady and slow, a gasp breaking from his lips when he reaches halfway. 

"Fuck, Kris..." Adam takes a deep breath of his own, his knuckles aching slightly from the force he's using to grip his hands together, tension rapt down his spine to lift him up onto his heels to see more. "That's it, keep going, show me, wanna see you take all of it, can you...?"

Kris laughs, breathless and broken, rough and _beautiful_ , arches up and that's faster, that's... God, yes, that's all of it, synthetic balls resting against Kris's ass for a moment before Kris pulls the dildo back, starts working it in again, fucking himself with long, slow movements, sinuous grace in every roll of his hips.

Adam's used to paying attention to his sex partners. He likes watching, but usually he's watching reactions to things that he's done. Watching like this, just watching what Kris does, is better than that. There's something oddly pure about it, focusing entirely on Kris, watching what Kris does solely for his own enjoyment, staying slow, drawing it out, a timeless eternity before Kris shifts his balance and takes hold of the dildo with his left hand, right hand wrapping around his cock. 

There are so many places to look, so many things to see besides Kris's cock - Kris's face, the way muscles in his stomach tense and flex, the half-suppressed catch of Kris's hips, the sound of Kris's breathing falling into sync with the rhythm of his hand. Watching Kris use the sleeve had been something, had been a hint at most, but watching Kris tease himself with the dildo is an insight into how Kris's relationship with sex toys is different than Adam's. Sure, it's probably different for everyone, but Kris uses sex toys like he's got a completely separate philosophy for them. 

Adam's not exactly hesitant when he uses a dildo, but Kris is a lot more confident. Kris knows what he's doing. Kris knows his body far better than Adam would have guessed. Kris sets a rhythm then varies it, pushes himself until his breath grows harsh and ragged and Adam's heart is pounding hard in his chest, loud in his head and then... pulls back, slows down, starts over. It's impressive, and it's erotic as hell.

Adam uses sex toys to get off. Kris uses them for sex.

It's more drawn out. It's more intense. Kris is almost teasing himself, coaxing himself close to the edge until his skin flushes darker and shines with sweat, muscles defined sharply with tension, and all of it with his eyes hidden behind the blindfold, incredibly expressive even without that visual connection.

"Is that, can you see?" Kris asks, words stretched and slurred, accent drawing out every vowel, voice lower and rasping to a frequency that resonates directly with Adam's libido. "What I'm doing?"

"Every detail," Adam promises. His own voice has lifted slightly, his tone breathy and light, which has nothing at all and everything to do with the fact that apparently he's been timing his own breath to Kris's movements as well, falling into harmony with him. "I can see you, see how hard you are, see you taking all of that in your ass, God, Kris, I can see all of it. How does it feel, baby? Tell me how it feels, I wanna hear you."

He's got to ask. He needs to ask, because if Kris doesn't say something soon Adam's not going to be able to hold back his own detailed description of exactly how much he wants to rock forwards to his hands and knees, untwist the scarf from the bedpost, crawl up onto the bed and replace Kris's hand on his cock with his mouth. Even with how bitter the lube's likely to taste.

"It's awesome," Kris says with a sigh, head lifting and turning towards Adam as if he can see. "It's... full, so much, it just..." He falters, breath rasping, hand tightening, and his head drops back, hips arch up, shivering hard as he comes, stripes shining across his abs.

Adam unlaces his fingers and wraps his hands in Kris's scarf again, trying desperately to ignore how hard his cock is, how much heat is coiled heavy and tight in his stomach, how close he is to working a hand into his jeans to finish off and how embarrassingly quick that would be. "Kris... That was... that was... Kris, fuck..."

Kris huffs a laugh, his chest rising with it, and slides down the bed until he's sprawled on his back, ribs working with every deep, rapid breath, dildo discarded on the covers next to him. "Different?"

"Oh, yeah." Different because Adam wasn't touching. Different because despite that lack of touch, he'd felt intensely involved in every moment. Different because he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so invested in watching someone get off.

Different because it was for him.

"It's, uh..." Kris licks his lips then sits up, muscles in his stomach bunching, head bent as he pulls the blindfold off, hair spiked with sweat in seven different directions, eyes dark and blinking slowly. "Different for me. With someone watching."

Adam nods, swallowing, and takes a deep breath, trying to persuade his body to calm down. "Different good?"

Kris hesitates, then nods back slowly before looking up to meet Adam's eyes. "Yeah. Really good."

Adam lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, then tilts his head towards his fastened wrists. "So...?"

"Right." Kris grins, finding a packet of wipes from somewhere to clean himself off, rubbing his fingers clear before he rolls forward to crawl towards Adam, easy and relaxed with a sway that Adam wants to call seductive. "Good for you, too?"

"Amazing," Adam says honestly, and surges up to meet Kris for a kiss, appreciative and hungry and just a little desperate, biting Kris's lip when he laughs and only settling when Kris sets hands to his face, cradling him in place to draw the kiss out just as he'd teased out his own arousal, slow and warm and leaving Adam close to trembling. "Kris, can I...?"

"Can you what?" Kris kisses him again, lighter, shorter.

Adam's really not opposed to being kissed, or to kissing Kris, but ... "The cuffs, are you good if I, can I get out of them now?"

Kris chuckles, lets go of Adam's face, and covers his hands instead, prying his fingers free of the scarf. "Yeah, we're good. Need a hand?"

Adam looks pointedly downwards. "With?"

"Just the cuffs," Kris says firmly, unwrapping the scarf from the bedpost. "Anything else is for you to handle, man."

"As long as you're good with it getting handled," Adam says frankly and grins, not even disappointed. He hadn't expected Kris to volunteer to use those amazing hands to get him off, but the brush off isn't enough for him to regret having put the possibility out there. He's just as invested in Kris being confident saying no to him as he is in Kris being confident saying yes.

He stretches his arms out once they're free of the scarf, trapping the cuff around his right wrist against his knee to pry the strap free, sighing at how light and easy his wrists feel once the cuffs are gone. Light, but less connected to Kris. Light, and going straight to his fly to unbutton and push in, wrap around his cock with a moan of relief at the pressure and contact.

"Close your eyes," Kris says, and Adam does because that's fair, Kris couldn't see him so now he can't see Kris, not with his eyes, still crystal clear in his mind and it's seconds, less, before everything he's seen and heard is too much to resist. His orgasm hits him hard, makes him cry out with the brightness of it, sharp and hot, pulsing over his hand and leaving him sticky, breathless and happy.

" _Adam_ ," Kris says, quiet and intense. 

Adam opens his eyes just in time to be kissed again.

~~

"So," Adam says, because he's not sure, and his usual policy when he's not sure about something is to ask and there's really no reason not to employ this policy with Kris as well, "did we just have sex?"

Kris pulls a fresh shirt over his head, much to Adam's disappointment, and frowns slightly. "You don't know? I mean, you were there."

"I was there," Adam agrees, "and you were there, so we were there, but sex is usually... I mean, usually, when I have sex, there's touching."

"Does that mean we didn't have sex?" Kris backs up, perching on the side of his bed. In Adam's personal and considered opinion, boxers and a shirt is far too much clothing for the current subject of discussion, but then, he's still fully dressed himself. He can kind of understand the urge to not be naked.

Adam tries not to get distracted by thoughts of what Kris has just been doing on that bed while naked. "I don't know. I mean, I guess people have phone sex, and Skype sex, and they don't touch for that, so..."

"So we did have sex," Kris says with a nod.

Sex, for Adam, usually involves not just touching during, but touching after, but Adam's really not confident that touching Kris right now would be welcome. Kris has his hands behind him, his body language is pretty open, but on the other hand, Kris backed away from him. On the ... however many hands, Adam's lost count, possibly this is an octopus with hands, anyway, Kris's bed is right there and if Kris is feeling anywhere near as sleepy as Adam is, sitting down is a purely practical thing. Adam's not even sure if he can get up off his knees just yet.

Adam's also not used to having to think this much after sex. "You know, I still have no idea. Does this class as sex for you? I thought you didn't need anyone else to be there for you to have sex."

"Not need, exactly," Kris says thoughtfully. His voice is still lower than usual, less smooth, nearly enough to distract Adam from what he's actually saying. "I can still have a great time on my own."

Which is great, really. Lovely. Adam's so happy for Kris. He's a little less happy for himself, even though it's not like he didn't know how Kris felt about sex. Eyes wide open.

It still stings. "I guess I'll just call a cab, then," Adam says, more sharply than he means to. "Leave you to have a great time."

"Adam..." Kris shifts forwards, leans towards him, hands on his knees. "I didn't mean... I wasn't finished."

Somewhere in the back of his head, Adam's convinced he's being unreasonable and there's something else he needs to say, but he can't imagine what it is and besides, there's the other voice shouting that down and insisting that it's okay to want things to be reciprocal. "Do you want to?"

"Adam," Kris says again, louder, and laces his hands together. "This is new for me, okay? I'm trying not to say this wrong."

In Adam's opinion, Kris isn't doing a great job of that, but even Adam's a little surprised how uncharitable his opinion is being. "I'd rather you just say something," he says honestly, sighs, and rocks up onto the balls of his feet, crouching. He doesn't want to sit on the floor, he really doesn't want to stay on his knees, but he's not sure about sitting on the bed next to Kris, either, and there's nowhere else to sit.

Kris nods, bites his lip, and slides down to the floor in front of Adam. "I can have a great time on my own," he repeats slowly, and Adam manages not to flinch. "But I had a great time with you, too. This. Different great. Definitely great."

And, Adam firmly reminds himself, entirely Kris's idea and Kris's choice, and mutual desire. "Great sex?"

"Great sex," Kris echoes firmly and holds his hand out to Adam.

After a moment of hesitation, Adam rocks forwards onto his knees and takes Kris's hand, squeezing lightly. "And you're okay with that?"

Kris tilts his head to the side and gives Adam a lopsided smile. "Am I okay with having great sex with you?"

Okay, phrased like that, it does sound kind of like a stupid question. "With having had great sex with me tonight," Adam clarifies. Maybe by now he doesn't actually need to repeat 'great', but his ego likes the sound of it.

Kris's smile widens, and he leans forwards to rest his forehead against Adam's. "As long as we get to do it again sometime."

That probably shouldn't be quite such a big relief to Adam, but it is, tightness easing from his chest as he squeezes Kris's hand and closes his eyes. Kris is too close to see, anyway, but for a moment, just that moment, he needs to not be looking at Kris. "Well, I'm sorry if this disappoints you, honey, but I don't think we're gonna manage that again tonight."

"Idiot," Kris says fondly. "Not tonight. Sometime in the future."

"Near future," Adam promises, and means it.


	5. Chapter 5

"And this," Cassidy says, "is why we don't jump into BDSM with new people without talking about it."

Adam nods against Cassidy's chest, tries to take a deep breath, and doesn't try to uncurl his fingers from Cassidy's shirt. He doesn't even protest when Brad's hand slides into his hair, petting gently and completely messing up any remnants of a style. "I wasn't exactly thinking about it like that."

"You weren't thinking with the upstairs brain at all," Brad says with asperity, and tugs Adam's hair sharply enough to make him yelp. "Remember last time?"

"Well, I do _now_." Adam rubs his head on Cassidy's shoulder, easing the ache on his scalp. "Kris isn't... I know him."

"He's not a stranger," Cassidy agrees. "But you didn't talk about it before agreeing to let him tie you up, did you?"

"I could have freed myself any time," Adam protests. Feebly, because he knows that's not the point. "And technically, I tied myself up."

"Bullshit," Brad says firmly. "And you know it."

Adam sighs. "Yeah, I know it. I'm pretty sure he hasn't done anything like that before."

"All the more reason for you to talk to him before doing anything like that tonight," Cassidy points out. "You know better than this, Adam."

"I know," Adam says quietly. "I know, I was just... I wanted him so much, and I was scared that if we stopped to talk..."

Brad's fingers dig into Adam's side, hard. "You are _not_ this stupid."

"I think I could be, for him," Adam admits.

"Then don't be." Brad curls in tighter against his back, pushing Adam closer into Cassidy. "Look, he seems nice, but if he's going to stop you being able to look after yourself..."

"He's not," Adam says, turning his head so he can keep breathing. "He's _not_. I did. Tonight, I did. Just tonight."

Cassidy shifts to free his arm, reaching it over Adam to Brad, holding them all together. "So how are you going to make sure you don't do it again?"

"I'm going to talk to him," Adam says dutifully. Reluctantly. Honestly. "Thanks for coming over. Both of you."

"You said you needed us," Cassidy said simply.

"At least you had that much sense," Brad adds.

Adam laughs, soft and tired, and flattens his hand on Cassidy's chest, fingers aching faintly from the tightness of his grip. He'd called Brad, because he always called Brad, but apparently Brad and Cassidy had turned into a package deal, and he really had no problem with that. Just a deep thankfulness that his friends were the kind of awesome people who were willing to break up whatever they'd been doing to come when he called. When he needed them. "Stay?"

"If you thought we were leaving tonight, you're even more of an idiot than I thought," Cassidy tells him.

"But I'm not sleeping on the couch," Brad says, arm snaking over Adam's side towards Cassidy. "If we're staying, we're staying here."

It's crowded, but it's good. It's people Adam loves, even if neither of them are the one he truly wants with him, and it's people who love him. For one night, for the sake of that love, he can put up with a crowded bed. "Right here," Adam agrees.

Brad pats his hip. "Just promise me one thing."

Adam can't see Brad, and he can't turn to look at him, but he can see Cassidy's face, and the steady intentness of his eyes. "I promise."

"Next time," Brad says, "and don't even try to tell me that there won't be a next time because I _know_ you, princess, next time, call Kris."

Something in Adam's chest shifts, not quite confident, not quite comfortable, but he can't and won't deny the truth behind Brad's words. "I promise," he repeats softly.

~~

It's really not a great time for a serious talk. Not that Adam believes there's ever really a good time for a serious talk, but on the day of a performance, big emotional discussions are severely deleterious to his voice. 

It's possibly why he's skipped coffee in favor of tea with honey, and possibly why he's gripping his mug more tightly than he needs to. 

"So," he says as lightly as he can, once Kris is sitting next to him on the couch. "I was pretty stupid last night."

Kris's face freezes, easy smile slowly fading. "I thought you wanted..."

"Oh, I wanted," Adam agrees, because that much is easy. That much is true, and he's not denying it. "Kris, I need to... Will you tell me something?"

"Only if you can tell me which something." Kris leans forwards slowly, putting his untouched coffee down on the table. "Are you okay?"

That's nowhere near easy to answer. It's not going to stop Adam trying. If he wants honesty from Kris, he's determined to offer honesty of his own. "Sort of," he hedges. "Just... Last night. Did you ever do that with anyone before?"

"Which bit?" Kris pauses, then shakes his head, eyes closed. "Can I touch you?"

It's unexpected, and Adam hates that it's unexpected, nearly as much as he loves that Kris wants it. "Always," he says, and lifts his hand.

Kris bypasses Adam's hand and squirms under his arm instead, curling up against Adam's side with his head against Adam's shoulder. "Did we do something really stupid last night?"

"That's not an answer," Adam says, settling his arm carefully around Kris's shoulders. 

"Neither is that," Kris counters.

Adam pushes back the urge to sigh and swallows instead, taking a sip of his tea. "Humor me."

"Only if you tell me we didn't screw everything up by having sex," Kris says stubbornly.

"We didn't screw everything up by having sex," Adam echoes promptly because God, the sex was possibly the only thing that really wasn't a problem. "But I'm trying to find out how much I was stupid and how much _we_ were, so how about you answer that question now?"

Kris bites his lip and nods, his hair rubbing against Adam's shirt. "Then, yeah. I haven't. I mean, I'm usually alone, and with Katy, we didn't..."

"Hey, no," Adam interrupts hurriedly. "Not asking about what your married sex life was like here."

"You kind of are," Kris says, sounding a lot more relaxed about it than Adam is or than Kris has been before. "It's only been her, before."

"Oh, baby..." Sympathy is almost definitely not what's needed or welcome, but it's still Adam's immediate response. "Okay, so I was stupid and you were inexperienced."

"Sex was stupid?" Kris asks, brows drawing together.

"Sex," Adam says firmly, "was very much not stupid. Hold onto that for me, okay?"

"Sex with you, not stupid," Kris repeats. "Got it."

"Good." Adam exhales relief, bending his head to kiss Kris's forehead. "Okay, the stupid bit is if you're going to tie someone up, or get tied up by someone, you talk to them about it first. And I don't mean the however few seconds we managed."

Kris nods slowly. "Even if you could get out of it?"

"Even if," Adam says, silently blessing Cassidy. "It can... Oh, fuck theory and what it _can_ do. For _me_ , it can mess with my head some. It's harder to think, it makes me want to do what I'm told and trust me, honey, there are people who'd love to know that one, mostly people I've worked with and that is so not the point. It doesn't matter that physically I could get out of it, because I knew you didn't want me to so I didn't want me to, and once I've got that in my head and cuffs on, it's hard for me to be able to talk about what I need."

"It didn't stop you talking," Kris says wryly and puts his hand on Adam's thigh, rubbing small circles near his knee. 

"Specific subject." Adam strokes Kris's shoulder in response, slow and steady. "I was a little focused."

"I wanted you focused," Kris says, his voice softer and less certain. "Is that... Was that bad?"

"Fuck, no," Adam says immediately, tightening his arm around Kris again. "No, shit, I'm not explaining this properly, I'm just... It's not _bad_ , baby. I promise. There's just a kind of balance to be paid for it. It's not about what I want or what I like, it's if I do certain things, I _need_ other things to get back to me after."

Kris stops rubbing, his hand flattening on Adam's knee. "That's what you couldn't talk about?"

"Exactly." And thank fuck Kris has caught up to that because Adam's really not sure he knows how to explain it any other way. "I didn't know... I was in a place where I wanted to please you and that's _not_ bad, it's just a thing that can be sometimes and it's hard to come back from, especially on my own."

"On your own," Kris echoes slowly. "When you left last night..."

"I called Brad," Adam says steadily. "He came over with Cassidy. They've seen me like that before, they know what I need."

Kris's hand slips away from Adam's leg, taking warmth with it. "You've done that before?"

"Not exactly that." Though Adam's not ashamed of what he _has_ done. A little hesitant about telling Kris, and that feels five kinds of fucked up. "One of my exs used to tie me up sometimes, and there was one time I got really stupid and let some guy in a club do it. Cassidy picked me up after that, he does it a lot more than I do."

"Gets tied up?" Kris asks.

"Actually, yeah." Adam tries a small smile. "I'm usually more on the tying up side of things, honestly, I can just be a little flexible about it."

"So," Kris says, his shoulders tensing under Adam's arm. "Last night..."

"I wanted to." He doesn't want Kris in any kind of doubt over that. "Everything we did, I wanted that. I should have stopped enough to talk to you _first_."

"So why didn't you?"

It's a reasonable question. It's a logical question. It's even a question that Adam knows the answer to, even if he's not proud of it. "Because I was stupid," he says frankly. "I was scared that if I slowed things down to talk you wouldn't want to go ahead, and yes, I _know_ that's not a good reason not to talk about it and I know it's bullshit and I know it's..."

Kris's mouth interrupts his words, which is a mercy because Adam's not even sure where he was going to go with that explanation. It's also fantastic because Kris kissing him is Kris kissing him and that's never not good, warm and soft and okay, right, public place, probably not a good idea to go much further.

Slowly, Adam draws back, easing his hold on Kris, and watches as Kris blinks a couple of times before opening his eyes - gorgeous eyes, darkened and soft. "Hey."

"Hey," Kris echoes softly. "Better?"

Adam takes his turn to blink, startled by the question, and laughs, tension loosening with it. "Better," he agrees. "Thanks."

"We're gonna have to find a balance between the whole not talking and talking yourself into a corner," Kris says with a faint smile. "Why'd you think I wouldn't want to?"

After a moment to grasp after the thread of the conversation, Adam takes a sip of his tea, mug still warm in his hand. "I guess I thought you might lose your nerve, if you'd psyched yourself up for it or something."

"I didn't," Kris says simply. "But if I had, that's pretty rough on both of us, right?"

"I said I got stupid, right?" Adam slides his hand across Kris's shoulder, curling it around the back of Kris's neck instead. "And I've been stupid. I've been so careful with you, I'm usually way more pushy."

"More on the tying up side of things?" Kris grins, head arching back into his touch. "Maybe you could try trusting me."

"I do," Adam protests.

Kris shakes his head, ends of his hair brushing against Adam's hand. "Trusting me to know what I want. Trusting me to say no if I don't. And trusting me when I say yes, as well."

Adam hesitates. "Trusting you to say yes?"

"Right." Kris rests his hand on Adam's chest, light but steady. "Try trusting my yes as much as my no, and that whichever it is, I'm gonna tell you."

That, more than anything else, tightens Adam's throat sharply enough to ache. "I can try that,"

"Good." Kris stretches closer, almost close enough to kiss, then leans away from Adam's mouth to whisper in his ear instead. "Since we've established that we didn't screw anything up, and sex isn't stupid, I've got a lot more yes than no."

The heat of Kris's breath on his ear and the low, soft warmth of Kris's whisper are apparently wired direct to Adam's cock, beginning to fill and rise against his jeans. "Yes to what?"

"Try me," Kris suggests, and honest to God _licks_ Adam's neck. "After last time I showed you something, you showed me how you do it."

Adam's definitely not planning on standing up any time soon, hips shifting slightly to try to ease the press of his button fly. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Kris just hums, and rubs his cheek against Adam's shoulder. "Remember that thing about talking with words?"

Adam resists the urge to bite Kris, but does turn his head so he can speak lower, closer to Kris's ear. "Are you saying," he says softly, deliberately, "that you want me inside you instead of your replica?"

Fuck, he's close enough to hear Kris's breath hitch, see the pulse in his neck flutter faster. "Yeah, I'm saying that."

However Adam had expected their talk to turn out, this really hadn't been one of the possibilities. Kris just continues to surpass his hopes. "Words," he murmurs. "From you too, baby."

Kris's throat bobs as he swallows, then pulls back. "Not here."

"Not here," Adam agrees, slightly relieved that Kris still has some limits, and that he's willing to express them. "I'm working tonight, though, I can't..."

"I'm working tonight, too." Kris bites his lip, reaching up to cover Adam's hand where it's still resting on his neck. "Maybe after?"

Adam shakes his head, lifting his fingers to lace them with Kris's. "I want both of us fresher than that, and tomorrow's a matinee day. Friday."

"I'm working Friday night, too," Kris says.

"Oh, Kris," Adam says, unbearably, unexpectedly lightheaded with happiness, and kisses Kris's cheek. "Not Friday night. Friday morning. I want to take my time with you. And I don't want you blindfolded."

~~

Adam's halfway through his make-up, chin lifted to blend his base before he starts the fight for access to the mirror, when the intercom crackles to life and everyone pauses, eyes going to the clock. The half's gone, the warm-up's complete, and it's way too soon for calls, which means...

"Lambert," comes over the speaker. "Adam Lambert, get your ass covered up and to Maria's desk. Now."

The dressing room erupts in jeering and whistles, and Adam laughs, snatches his robe, and escapes with it still in his hand. Technically his ass is covered, but past experience has taught him that Maria really doesn't appreciate the sight of him in nothing but his boxer briefs. Her loss. 

He's pulling his robe on when he runs directly into someone and instinctively backs up, apologizing before he can focus on who it is, still trying to fight his arm into a sleeve that's not where it usually is. 

"You got it twisted," says a far-too-familiar voice, and Adam freezes. 

"Kris?"

Kris reaches up to push Adam's robe from his shoulder, calmly untwisting it and holding it up. Adam automatically puts his hand into the sleeve, still staring. Kris is in black pants and a black button-down, a kind of uniform that Adam instantly recognizes, if not on Kris.

Kris. Kris is in the theater. Kris is backstage in the theater. Kris is dressed like he _belongs_ backstage in the theater. 

"You good, man?" Kris pats his arm, looking like he's enjoying the whole situation way too much. Of course he is. Kris must have known from the start.

"I..." Adam starts, then stops as the intercom hisses again. "Shit. _Shit_. I've got to go."

Kris nods obligingly, dropping his hand. "And I have to pee before the show starts."

Adam's not sure if he want to kiss Kris or shake him. "And you have to come back here and _find me_ ," he insists, backing up towards the desk. "At intermission. Wait, can you do that?"

"I can," Kris says thoughtfully. "You might be busy."

" _Lambert_ ," the intercom says menacingly. "Oh, for the love of God, is _nobody_ in this theater?"

"After, then," Adam bargains, taking another step back. "After the show. Don't go anywhere, just come right here."

"You know Maria's going to take it out of your ass if you don't get to her soon," Kris says with a grin, and _bounces_ some, up on the balls of his feet. 

"After," Adam repeats firmly, then turns and sprints because Kris is right about Maria and because whatever the hell Kris in the theater means, he so doesn't have time to analyze it right before a performance.

Or, as it turns out, at intermission, because Maria tells him that Toby's sprained his ankle and Adam's pre-show routine turns into a scramble to get into Fiyero's make-up and costume instead of his regular one, and Fiyero has way more costume changes than one of the chorus, which means intermission is a frantic rush to change and grab some water in time for the house lights to go down again. By the end of the show, Adam's running on pure adrenaline and familiar enough to recognize it, from the pound of his heart in sheer relief for successfully reaching the end of the show to the sweat that would be blurring anything less than professional stage make-up and is going to make him deeply unpopular with wardrobe.

And he's still thinking about Kris.

Adam strips out of his costume in record time, cleanser rubbed into his face when he hears the knock. Whoever it is will have to deal with Adam's near nudity if they want to come in that badly. He reaches for a cotton ball, sweeping it smoothly over his skin, beginning to remove the panstick. "Toby's not here!"

In the mirror, he can see the door opening anyway, and Kris slides around it, closing it behind him and leaning back against it. "Terrance said _you_ were, though."

Grabbing for his robe, Adam swiftly wraps it around himself and reaches for another cotton ball to start work on the other side of his face. "Understudy gets to use the dressing room, too. Shit, sorry, I said back by the boys’ chorus room, didn't I?"

"Right." Kris-in-the-mirror grins indistinctly. "Where you left your street clothes."

It's not as if pretty much the entire cast hasn't already seen Adam naked, but Adam's acutely aware that Kris hasn't. He's seen Kris naked, but even Monday night had kept Adam pretty much entirely clothed, which is exactly why he’s tugging the robe tighter around him to cover up more. Sweaty, post-show wired is not, in Adam's opinion, his best look ever. "I was going back for them?" he offers, picking up a cloth to wipe the rest of the cleanser from his skin before starting on the heavy-duty eye make-up remover. "Okay, no, that's bullshit, I forgot, but I was probably going to remember to go back for them before I shower."

And that's definitely one of the joys of using a principal's dressing room. He's not going to have to wait for use of one of the communal showers. He's going to use Toby's, because Toby's the stupid fucker who has a principal role and still goes rollerblading on his day off and sprains his ankle and that means that Adam gets not just that role, but that dressing room all week.

"I brought it." Kris holds up Adam's bag, high enough for Adam to see it, and Adam forgets himself enough to smile back before closing his eyes and working on removing what's left of his mascara.

"So," he says, holding the cotton ball still to let the lotion work its magic. "How long have you worked here?"

"Five months," Kris says easily, and Adam opens his eyes in shock to get an eyeful of lotion.

By the time he's mopped up his watering eyes, he's pretty sure that there's no make-up left on his face, and swivels around to stare at Kris directly. "You knew? Back when we met in that cafe, you knew me already?"

"I really didn't," Kris says instantly. "It was coincidence, sure, but man, I'm down pretty much _under_ the stage, we don't get to actually _see_ the show."

Adam nods, looking down to Kris's feet. His own bag's sitting there, but there's a case as well, black fabric contours half-hidden against Kris's black pants. "Violin?"

"Viola," Kris corrects. "Second seat. Can't even see the MD's monitor screen."

And most of the musicians arrive after the cast and leave before they’ve finished changing. It's plausible. It's one hell of a coincidence, but it's plausible. "But you did know. When I said I was working on _Wicked_ , you knew we worked on the same show."

"Yeah, I knew." Kris slides down against the door some, knees bending as he goes. "Still, one meeting... you could have been a total asshole."

"A total asshole that you gave your phone number," Adam points out. "Just... stay here a few minutes? I really need to shower." And get some clothes on, but he's not getting dressed before showering. "If Anna shows up, she wants the garment case on the left of the rack over there."

"Got it," Kris says, and Adam ducks around the corner into the shower, not slipping out of his robe until he’s safely out of sight.

"Why didn't you tell me after that?" he calls out, just before he starts the water running. 

"Why didn't you know?" Kris counters.

Adam hasn't got an answer for that. The musicians are all on twelve week contracts, but so are the cast and he knows everyone in the cast. The cast don't mix with the musicians, but he's never understood why. It's just a thing. 

He stays quiet, shimmies out of his underwear, and gets into the shower.

~~

Clean, dressed in street clothes and with basic make-up covering his face, Adam signs the last playbill, poses for one last photo, gives the stage door crowd one more smile and then picks up his bag to head down the block to the coffee shop Kris had pointed out. His usual preference after a show is either a bar or a club to work off the buzz of performing, but that’s already been shaken by Kris’s appearance in his dressing room, plus he does actually want to talk to Kris.

Adam avoids the temptation of coffee and gets himself a bottle of water, opening it as he slides into the chair next to Kris. "So," he says, after the first swallow. "Where _do_ you guys hang out after a show?"

Kris chuckles, turning his mug so the handle faces his left, sliding his thumb through the handle and not picking it up. "Mostly we just go home," he admits. "Except the wind section, they’ll be in that new bar about two blocks south."

Adam wrinkles his nose. "Well, no wonder we never see you, that place sucks and that’s not you anyway. Basically you’re saying you guys creep in while we’re getting into make-up, sneak out while we’re getting changed, then go _home?_ "

"Pretty much." Kris nods, his fingers sliding against his mug. "Most of us work days at least some of the week. Matt teaches piano, Siobhan gives guitar lessons, Marty plays with the Phil. The rest of us do session work when we can."

"And you play open mic nights," Adam adds. "So you have to practice sometime, too, right?"

"Right," Kris agrees. "So we don’t really do late nights like you guys do."

"I work in the daytime, too," Adam protests. "Most of us do. We work out, there’s singing lessons, dance lessons, I do yoga and pilates…"

Kris doesn’t look convinced. "It’s not work unless you get paid for it."

"No, it’s work that I pay for," Adam says. "It’s work that means I can keep working on the show and that I’m more likely to get my contract renewed when it comes up. Don’t start thinking what you see on stage is the only work we do, honey."

"What I don’t see on stage," Kris says firmly. 

"What you don’t see," Adam agrees with a sigh. "I’m just saying, if you guys aren’t around to socialize, we’re never gonna get to know you."

"You got to know me," Kris says.

It’s true, but it’s not actually related to the subject. It’s still true enough to make Adam pause. "Not because we work on the same show."

Kris nods, letting go of his mug and pushing it to the side. "Yeah, okay, but…"

"But that’s why I didn’t know," Adam says. "Okay?"

"Okay," Kris says, sighs, and scrubs his hand across his face. "Sorry, caffeine’s not working."

"It probably will in a couple of hours," Adam says wryly. "Trust me. Voice of experience. Is your car near the theater?"

"Define near?" Kris blinks, rolling his head before looking up to meet Adam’s eyes.

Near or not, Adam knows what those movements mean in anyone. "Baby, you’re not driving home tonight."

"Can’t afford a cab," Kris admits.

"And I don’t want you killing yourself falling asleep at the wheel," Adam says firmly. "Just tell me your car’s going to be safe wherever it is overnight."

Kris hesitates. "Probably?"

"Good enough." Adam takes another swig of water and caps the bottle, standing up to offer his hand to Kris. "Because mine isn’t, which means we’re taking mine. Up."

Kris stands, obligingly obedient. "Taking it where?"

"Back to my place," Adam says, looping his arm around Kris’s shoulders. "I'll take you dancing with us another night. Tonight, we’re gonna go get you somewhere you can sleep."

"We can sleep," Kris corrects, but his arm slips around Adam’s waist and that’s all the agreement Adam’s waiting for before turning them towards the door.

"We can sleep," Adam agrees. "I’ll bring you back for your car tomorrow." It really will be tomorrow, too. Adam’s actually going to be home before midnight on a show night. 

Kris pulls back against him, enough to make Adam stop. "You said Friday…"

It takes a moment for Adam to catch up with the reference, then he laughs and bends to kiss Kris’s forehead. "I did, and I meant it. Tonight, we’re going to _sleep_. Believe me, Kris, when we get to Friday, you’re going to be awake and with me."

"I’m with you now," Kris says stubbornly.

"Yeah, you are." Adam urges Kris towards the door again, holding it open. "And tonight, you’re going to be asleep and with me. I could drive you back to your place, except then you’d be there without your car and I’d have to come get you in the morning to fetch it, so let me be selfish and take you home with me, okay?"

Kris stops outside the door, waiting to be able to press in against Adam’s side again, which is both gratifying and a little amazing, heat of his body strong and solid. "Selfish?"

"Selfish," Adam repeats. "You’ll save me the drive out to yours and back. Twice."

Fingers slide up under Adam’s shirt, curling to rub against his skin. "We can do that," Kris says quietly.

Kris is asleep in the passenger seat before they’re halfway back to Adam’s apartment.

~~ 

"And?" Alisan says expectantly, leaning forwards.

It’s definitely time to cut off her caffeine supply. "And I took him to bed," Adam says. "To _sleep_ , get your mind out of the gutter."

"But it’s so happy there," Alisan mourns. "And yours used to be, God, Adam, what happened?"

"Sleep happened," Adam says impishly and steals her soda. "And then breakfast happened, and then I drove him back to his car and went to Brooke’s pilates class before the matinee."

Alisan collapses back with a sigh and a pout. "Sleep. You had Kris in your bed, and you just _slept?_ "

If Adam was hearing the story from anyone else, he wouldn’t believe it either, but anyone who wasn’t there or who isn’t him won’t be able to understand the helpless clutch of fondness at how clumsy Kris is when he’s half asleep, at how easily Kris had trusted him to take care of them both. "Not just slept," he admits. "But not what you’re thinking, either."

"You," she accuses, "are getting boring."

"I," Adam counters, bringing out the diversion tactics, "have three spare tickets to the cast cabaret on Saturday night."

Alisan’s eyes widen. "Your cast cabaret?"

"My cast cabaret," Adam confirms smugly. "Who’s boring now, huh?"

"Just tell me I get one," she says. "Or two."

"One," Adam says firmly, putting the soda glass down. "Brad and Cassidy get the other two."

"I love you best," Alisan says promptly. "I’d love you better if you could swing two…"

"Better than best?" Adam laughs, reaching out to pull her into a hug. "If you mean who I think you mean, Kris might be able to do something about that."

Alisan presses a loud kiss to his cheek. "Totally not boring."

Adam grins. "So, I have two days to convince Kris to perform in front of the cast."

"With you?" Alisan bounces back onto the couch, tucking her knees up. "You and him together?"

"Gutter," Adam says affectionately. "No, honey. No rehearsal time."

Alisan snorts. "Remember that time you and Monte did 'Whole Lotta Love' with zero rehearsal?"

"Remember that Monte and I had been working together for months before that?" Adam counters, and tugs her hair. "I’m gonna be happy if I can just get Kris singing in front of the cast."

"And I’m gonna be there," Alisan says contentedly, leaning in against him. "Moral support."

"Immoral support, more like," Adam teases, then yelps with laughter as she turns to launch a tickle attack.


	6. Chapter 6

By the end of Thursday night's show, the adrenaline buzzing through Adam isn't just from performing. He's been good, he know's he's been good, he knows he's connected with Lisa, with Sally, with the audience, fighting to rein in his energy to keep from bouncing through the curtain calls. He strips, showers, changes in record time, still hooking a necklace into place as he hipchecks the dressing room door to stop it from rebounding on his ass.

"I know we said Friday," Kris says, his voice rough, his eyes wide. "I _heard_ you, Adam, I..."

Adam checks his watch, half a heartbeat of wasted time before he slides both hands into Kris's hair and kisses him. This, yes, God, this, exactly what he needs, heat burning higher at the warmth of Kris's mouth, the sweet, desperate moan Kris gives, the way Kris's arms loop around his neck and how fucking easily Kris opens for him, slick and inviting. Another half-step backs Kris against the wall, pushes him there, weight resting in against his hips as Adam licks deeper, giddy with the twist of Kris's body pressed against his and Kris's breath, harsh and close enough to hear, to feel. "Ninety minutes to Friday," he agrees unsteadily. "And thirty of those to get home and I need to go out and sign for people and _fuck_ waiting."

"Fuck waiting," Kris agrees, the curse sounding strange enough from Kris to startle Adam with the intensity of lust slamming hard and heavy, tight in his stomach. "It's nearly Friday?"

"It'll be even nearer Friday by the time I get you home." Which is going to happen soon, really, definitely soon. Just as soon as Adam can manage enough control to let go of Kris. Not yet. Not now. Now is for running his hand down Kris's side to squeeze Kris's hip and watch Kris's eyes fall half-closed, heavy-lidded and gorgeous. 

Kris shivers, beautifully responsive, and drops his hands to Adam's shoulders, grip tightening. "You have to, you said, sign, there are... people, they're waiting for you."

"I'd rather keep them waiting than keep you waiting," Adam says honestly. Keeping Kris waiting would mean stopping, and stopping would mean not slipping his thumb under the hem of Kris's shirt, pushing up to find the waistband of his pants and the smooth, soft skin just above them.

"Work," Kris says weakly. "Adam, stop."

Adam stops, moving his hand back to neutral ground on Kris's hip, safely over fabric. "Then breathe for me, Kris. Open your eyes, look at me, and breathe nice and slow for me."

Kris opens his eyes and looks, and Adam honestly can't tell if Kris is taking deep breaths because his own heart is beating double time, no matter how much he tries to slow it. "That's it," Adam says softly, and kisses Kris again, lighter, slower. "Good. Wait for me?"

"Don't have much choice," Kris says. "Cale gave me a ride tonight, I don't have my car."

"Then I'll give you a ride." Adam ignores what it means that Cale knows Kris isn't planning on driving home tonight, and focuses on the fact that it means that he gets to take Kris home without having to worry about whether Kris's car is safe. "Any kind of ride you want, baby."

Kris swats his hip lightly, and Adam grins, finally moving back to let Kris away from the wall, shameless in reaching down to adjust his cock in his jeans because there's no way that Kris has missed exactly how much Adam appreciates the way Kris's body fits against his own.

"Just take me home," Kris says, following Adam for half a step before letting go. "Soon."

"Soon," Adam agrees, helpless to say anything else, kisses Kris once more, and runs off towards the stage door before he can decide to drag Kris out through front of house and forget signing completely.

He can't forget Kris. Through every photo he poses for, every person he thanks for coming to the show, every Playbill he signs, Kris is still in Adam's mind - and, after the first few minutes, in his peripheral vision, waiting about halfway down the block, the lights on the front of the theater perfectly bright enough for Adam to be able to see Kris standing there, head bent forwards as he fiddles with something in his hand.

One more smile, one more signature, one more heartfelt thank you, and Adam's headed for Kris, not even breaking stride once he reaches Kris and sweeps him up with one outstretched arm. "Less texting, more going," he says, professional smile still firmly in place. "Please."

Kris's arm twists around his waist, warm and strong, and squeezes. "Going," Kris agrees. "Going now?"

"Going now." Adam nods, steers them around the corner towards the side street where he's left his car. "How invested are you in this waiting for Friday thing?"

"I can go with just waiting until we get to your place," Kris says. 

Adam laughs, some of the tightness and urgency easing at the prospect of less waiting, and stops long enough to kiss Kris hard before digging into his bag for car keys. "I was hoping you'd say that."

Kris grins, leaning against the side of Adam's car. "Bull, man, you were hoping I'd say I'd blow you in your car."

The bag slips out of Adam's hands, car keys jingling quietly as they try to pull his fingers off in the attempt to follow both the bag and gravity. "I wasn't," he says thoughtfully. "But only because I didn't know it was an option."

"It's not," Kris says, crouching down to pick up Adam's bag. 

"Not tonight," Adam corrects softly, kisses Kris again and unlocks the car. "I don't want to lose the rest of tonight to getting arrested."

"Or tomorrow," Kris says, looking up at Adam through his impossible eyelashes as he slides into Adam's car.

"Or anything," Adam says fervently, closes the door on Kris and determinedly sets his attention on getting them both back safely.

~~

Somewhere, there's a guardian angel watching over lust-addled musical theater actors, because Adam manages to drive them safely back to his apartment without even too many red lights, and find a parking space less than a block away. The angel's evidently used up all his powers by the time they reach the building, because the elevator's out again.

Then again, removing the temptation that even a few more seconds' privacy would offer might even be a good thing. Adam's too focused on getting them - and Kris's viola, because that's not staying out in Adam's car overnight - upstairs and into his apartment to even spend much of the climb appreciating Kris's ass.

Adam locks the door, slides the chain, holds the keys up so Kris can clearly see where he's putting them down, and takes a deep breath. "Is it midnight yet?"

Kris toes off his dress shoes with a complete disregard for the leather and shakes his head. "Do you care?"

"Depends how tired you are," Adam says honestly. "Are you going to fall asleep on me again?"

"I don't _think_ so." Kris scrunches up his nose in consideration. "Are you going to keep me awake?"

"At least for one orgasm." Adam's entirely confident that they can at least manage one each before sleep, even on the schedule that Kris had flaked out on him before. "And you're going to tell me no if I do anything you don't want, okay, baby?"

Kris nods, backing up a step into the room. "And you're gonna do the same, right?"

"Really don't think that's going to be an issue," Adam says, grins, and drops to one knee to take his own boots off. "But if you do, I'll say so."

"Right," Kris agrees, nods again, bites his lip, then folds gracelessly to his knees in front of Adam. "Are you... What are you gonna do?"

"Oh, Kris." Adam abandons his bootlaces and lifts his hand to brush the back of his fingers against Kris's cheek. "It's not what I'm gonna do. It's what we're gonna do. Together."

"So what are we gonna do?" Kris repeats stubbornly.

"Well..." Adam rocks forwards for a kiss, licking over Kris's bitten lip, giving himself a moment to suck it lightly before nipping at it himself and loving the choked sound Kris gives him in return. "You want me to tell you as we go?"

Kris blinks slowly. "Like a voiceover?"

Adam doesn't even try to stop himself from laughing at that. "Not like a voiceover. Like I tell you that once I get my boots off, I'm gonna start by taking you over to my bed and stripping you naked for me."

"Are..." Kris's voice is thicker, huskier. "Are you going to get naked, too?"

Fuck, that rasp is just beautiful. "Well..." Adam turns his hand, tracing his fingers down the side of Kris's neck. "I guess that depends on whether you're gonna be doing anything to get me there."

Kris’s throat bobs as he swallows, undulating under Adam’s touch. "I think… Yeah. I think I might."

That needs another kiss, even if it’s another delay in getting Kris to bed. "I’m not going to fuck you tonight," Adam decides, and it’s the right decision, no matter what his cock might think about it. "We’ll save that one for after sleep."

"Then…" Kris blinks slowly. "But…"

"Bed," Adam says firmly and strokes his hand down Kris’s arm to take his hand. "Bed, and naked, and we’ll go from there."

It’s not that smooth and straightforward. Kris makes a stop in the bathroom, which gives Adam the chance to grab a fresh bottle of water from the fridge to put by his bed for later and to take his socks off (kind of a relief, because socks are impossible to strip off in a seductive manner), and then Adam decides that maybe a bathroom stop isn’t a bad idea now instead of later, and then there’s the absent check that he really has locked up and turned off the rest of the lights, but then…

God, then. Then Kris is sitting on the side of his bed, _waiting_ for him, looking up at him with so much trust, so much hope. So much intensity that Adam can’t bear it, turns a kiss into a tumble that tangles them both together and takes them down onto the bed, his hands sliding under Kris’s shirt to smooth over skin. "I said naked, didn’t I?"

"Both of us," Kris agrees breathlessly, tone low enough to pulse another kick of arousal to life.

Adam’s got an easier job than Kris does. Kris’s shirt is a button down, which makes it the work of moments to unfasten, each opened button followed by a kiss to newly revealed skin until Adam can push the shirt back from Kris’s shoulders and let Kris obligingly wriggle out of it. Adam’s own shirt is easy enough to be rid of, but the tangle of necklaces gives Kris pause. Adam laughs, bends his head forwards, and distracts himself tracing the lines of Kris’s collarbone with his tongue, checking and chasing the places that make him shiver and choke back half-swallowed curses. 

"I want to hear it," he tells Kris’s shoulder, biting gently, then harder when Kris gasps for him. "I want to hear _you_ , stop holding out on me."

"Adam," Kris says obediently, vowels drawing out slow, almost a sigh, his fingers going still on the back of Adam’s neck. "Adam, I… "

"Good, baby." Adam eases back, licks the fading imprint of his own teeth, watching pale lines pinken on Kris’s skin. "That’s it, you can cuss me out, I’m not gonna tell your mom on you."

Kris does choke at that, laughter pressed into the side of Adam’s neck. "Don’t bring my momma into this."

"Why not?" Adam slides one hand into Kris’s hair, silent encouragement that’s rewarded by the intoxicating soft press of Kris’s lips, a kiss that’s almost a tease. "She raised a good, polite son."

"Didn’t know you’d met my brother," Kris retorts, then huffs triumph and leans back, two necklaces held in victorious hands. "Couldn’t find a fastening on the others."

Adam grins, kisses Kris, and takes the necklaces to put safely out of the way on his nightstand. "Because they don’t have them."

"Cheating," Kris complains, and lifts them off over Adam’s bent head before turning his attention to Adam’s wrists and the collection of bracelets there.

"You know what, we can leave those," Adam says, only partly because he wants to find out how Kris reacts to the different textures against his skin later. "Naked _now_."

"Naked's good," Kris agrees unsteadily, wriggles back, and takes his own pants off, swiftly followed by underwear.

Adam's barely a heartbeat behind before his jeans hit the floor and he pounces, hands to Kris's shoulders to bear him down to the bed, teeth catching Kris's earlobe for a moment and tugging gently. "Gonna make this so good for you."

"And for you?" Kris slides his hand up Adam's chest, curving over his shoulder. 

"That's what makes it good for me," Adam says simply, catches Kris's hand, and kisses the back of it. "Remember what you showed me the first time?"

Kris's brows draw together in a moment of thought that Adam's going to credit to the overwhelming experience of them being naked together rather than that first demo being unmemorable. "The... sleeve?"

Adam nods, pressing Kris's hand down to the sheet. "Remember what I showed you that day?"

It takes a moment, but the slow wash of color spilling up Kris's throat is an answer even before Kris licks his lips. "Seriously?"

"Oh, yeah." Bending his head, Adam kisses the inside of Kris's wrist before letting go. "Unless you're gonna tell me no."

Kris shakes his head, movements not quite smooth. "I'm not."

"Then..." Then God, yes, happiness bubbling up and escaping into kisses pressed to Kris's shoulders, to Kris's chest, warmer and firmer than Adam's let himself imagine, body hair coarse against his lips. "Tell me yes."

"God yes," Kris says, a rush and a sigh. "Please."

"Polite," Adam approves, then stops spending time on talking, sliding down to rest one arm across Kris's hips, free hand wrapping around Kris's cock and fuck, that's good. That's amazing, hot against his palm, hardening and smoothing out, better to hold than to see and even better to taste.

It's not the best position for deepthroating. That's fine; actually an advantage, because the moment Adam sucks the head of Kris's cock into his mouth, Kris's hips buck up and he cries out, broken and rough and _beautiful_.

Adam presses down a little harder on Kris's hips, and settles in to enjoy himself. Not teasing, though the thought that he could is tempting, intoxicating. Just taking his time, being thorough, learning the way Kris's cock fits into his mouth, the way Kris whimpers when Adam takes him deeper, how hard he can suck before trembling want breaks to tension and need.

Kris shudders for him, reaches down to grasp his shoulders, and Adam risks letting go of Kris's cock to guide one of Kris's hands to his hair instead, pressing gently as he pulls off. "You can pull my hair if you want," he says softly, pleased by the sound of the rasp to his voice. "I like it. Just don't try to hold my head down."

Kris's eyes are wider than ever, darker, his blinking slower but not looking away from Adam. "You want...?"

"I want," Adam agrees, then licks the head of Kris's cock and slides his mouth back down over it before he can say anything more revealing. Now is not the time for revealing. Now is the time for sucking a steady insistent rhythm over Kris's cock, tongue dragging with each pull back until Kris's fingers tighten in his hair and tug lightly. Adam hums approval, feels the shiver Kris gives him in return and the way Kris pulls harder, sharp sweet ache of it stinging clear through the warm haze of arousal and pleasure.

"Adam," Kris says, all breathless rasp. "Adam, _fuck_...."

Sweetest music Adam's ever heard. He hums again, lower, closer to the groan that wants to tighten his throat, closes his eyes, and gives himself over to the moment, the weight and press of Kris's cock sliding across his tongue, the bitter warning before Kris tenses under him and comes, a thick salt rush of broken curses and gasps.

It's more than Adam expects, not more than he can deal with, swallowing and easing back, pushing his head into Kris's hand before sliding up to sprawl against his side, satisfied and more than a little smug at the expression on Kris's face. "Still with me, baby?"

" _Adam_ ," is all Kris says, sounding as stunned as he looks, then rolls to curl around Adam, all clinging arms and legs, his forehead sweaty where he pushes it against Adam's shoulder.

Adam's not entirely sure if he should be worried or flattered but he's coming down on the side of flattered, slowly stroking Kris's hair. "Right here, Kris. I'm here, I've got you."

Kris nods, his breath hot and rapid on Adam's skin, gradually slowing and deepening. When he looks up, his hair is spiked and sticking to his forehead in clumps, his lips bitten red and full. "I wanted to see you."

"You did see me, baby." At least, definitely for some of it. The memory of looking up Kris's body to see Kris watching him is one that Adam's not letting go of any time soon. "Did you want me to not suck you off?"

"No," Kris says slowly. "I mean, yeah. I mean I wanted you to. I mean, thanks?"

Under any circumstances other than the one with Kris naked in his arms and Kris tracing patterns over Adam's back with his fingertips, Adam could potentially be offended by that. Given that Kris is indeed naked in his arms, Adam laughs, bending his head to rub his nose gently over Kris's cheek. "So you liked it?"

"Yeah." Kris pauses, chuckles low and breathy, bites his lip. "Sorry, man, I should've... yeah. That was awesome."

"I'll take awesome," Adam teases with a grin. 

"You'll take..." Kris wriggles back, expression intent, and pushes at Adam's shoulder. "I still want to see you."

Adam goes with the push, rolling onto his back. "I'm right here."

"Said that already," Kris points out, settling on his knees. "I didn't get a chance, I just..." He reaches out, right hand flat as he skims it over Adam's chest, barely touching. "You saw me before."

"And I loved it." Adam folds his arms behind his head, partly for support so he can keep watching Kris and partly as a way to keep himself from distracting Kris with touching. If Kris wants to look, Kris gets to look. "Still do, fuck, look at you, you're gorgeous."

"Me?" Kris shakes his head, leaning forwards, touch firming. Apparently Kris looks with his hands, and Adam has no objections to that. "I'm... Damn, Adam, have you _seen_ yourself?"

Adam does have objections to that. "Hey, this is not a competition. You're allowed to like how I look without running yourself down, Kris."

Kris slides his hand further down, fingers brushing against Adam's cock in a seriously distracting manner. "I like how you look," Kris echoes, voice low, and curls his hand around Adam's cock. "I like how you feel, too."

Adam prides himself on the fact that he manages to stay still, and doesn't berate himself at all for groaning. "Oh, fuck, I like how you like it."

"Yeah?" Kris isn't looking at Adam's face. Kris is looking at Adam's cock, unexpectedly intense, like it's some kind of mystery he's determined to unravel.

It's not going to take much to unravel Adam completely. "Yeah," he agrees breathlessly. "Kris, can you... shit, baby, please, _do_ something."

"What kind of something?" Kris's face is nowhere near as innocent as his tone. Or his hand. Adam would be very happy for Kris's hand to be a lot less innocent.

Then again, Adam's perfectly happy to prove how innocent he isn't. "Did you want directions?" he purrs, as smoothly as he can manage with Kris's hand still unmoving around his cock. "Because I can do that. Detailed instructions."

Kris turns an interesting shade of pink and bends to kiss Adam hard, which is so an acceptable response. "Shut up," he says unsteadily, and finally moves his hand, dragging a little too dry in a slow stroke that has Adam close to writhing in half a heartbeat.

"Kris," he breathes, freeing one arm from behind his head to reach out, stroking Kris's hip. "Lube in the top drawer."

Plus a few other things, but Adam's personal collection of toys pales in comparison to Kris's and he figures that doesn't need warnings. It does mean Kris letting go, which Adam greets with a low whine of displeasure, though thankfully Kris doesn't seem disposed to get distracted by anything except the lube. 

"We're gonna go lube shopping tomorrow," Kris says, his nose wrinkled.

"Hey," Adam objects. "Personal preference. Also, we're not leaving this _bed_ tomorrow."

It's a slight exaggeration. Adam's fairly sure that they might make it as far as his bathroom.

"Have you tried the good stuff?" Kris wriggles back, stretching out to lie down beside Adam in a way that means a lot more body contact.

Adam approves. "Right now, the good stuff is whatever gets your hand back on my cock sooner," he says honestly. "Seriously, honey. I'll try whatever you like, I swear, but right now there are _priorities_."

Kris, because he's apparently both a complete lube snob and occasionally a total bastard, laughs, but he does squeeze lube out into his hand and give it a moment to warm before blessedly wrapping his hand around Adam's cock again.

It's even better. Maybe it's the delay, maybe it's the lube, maybe it's the moment of experience in knowing how good Kris's hand feels, but it's definitely better. Kris's hand is strong and warm, no hesitation in the way he starts stroking, steady and firm with an occasional slight twist or stroke of his thumb that makes Adam see stars and moan loud, shameless appreciation.

Kris manages to unravel Adam's mystery dizzyingly quickly. 

~~

Adam wakes up sticky, half-hard, totally relaxed and curled around Kris's back, with Kris's hand wrapped around his wrist. It takes a few minutes to figure out that he's actually awake and not still dreaming, but his dreams have never featured the sticky, itchy feeling that reminds him that he refused to let go of Kris long enough for either of them to clean up the night before. 

Bending his head, he rubs his nose against Kris's hair at the nape of his neck, inhaling deeply, breathing in the warm scent of Kris's skin. Kris definitely smells real, faint remains of his cologne lingering almost enough to be identified, and Adam takes another breath before giving into temptation and kissing the soft skin just below Kris's hairline. 

Kris's hand tightens on his wrist for a moment before slackening off, and Kris makes a soft protesting sound, wriggling to press back more firmly against Adam. It's kind of adorable, kind of hot, and kind of too much because the morning brings certain needs that can't be indefinitely denied.

Adam kisses Kris's neck again, then Kris's shoulder, biting lightly. Kris grumbles wordlessly, but he does let go of Adam's wrist enough for Adam to reluctantly move away, sliding out of bed and tucking the blankets closely around Kris to try to keep him warm. Either it doesn't work, or Kris was as close to waking up as Adam was, because by the time Adam gets back, Kris is sitting up, his knees tenting the covers in front of him.

"Hey," Adam says softly, well aware that it's inane, but there hasn't been any coffee yet and it's early and Kris is naked in his bed. His brain isn't exactly focused on conversation. 

"Hey," Kris returns with a crooked grin, and stretches a hand out towards Adam.

Adam takes it as an invitation, lacing his fingers with Kris's as he sits down on the edge of the bed. Apparently it's more of an invitation than that, because Kris reaches out with his free hand, tugging Adam in close enough for a kiss. Morning sour breath aside, the ease and directness of the action chases away tension that Adam hadn't realized he'd been holding, sighing it away into the warmth of Kris's mouth.

He lets his teeth press against Kris's lip purely for the sound Kris gives him in return, leaning in for just a moment longer before pulling back to study Kris's face. "Sleep well?"

There's a pink line across Kris's cheek from a fold in the pillowcase, his eyes are still heavy from sleep, and his hair's spiking in about eight different directions. He's the most beautiful sight Adam's ever seen.

Kris loops his arm around Adam's neck, stretching up for another kiss. "Bit more than you did. Can I use the bathroom?"

It's weirdly charming that he's even asking. Adam strokes Kris's side, following down until his fingers are brushing the top of the swell of Kris's ass and the covers are bunched around his wrist. "You get that you don't have to ask permission, right?"

"It's your home." Kris's nose scrunches up. 

"And I'm sure you're house-trained." Adam grins and kisses Kris's nose, moving back. "Go ahead, baby. Just come right back here."

Kris comes back. Kris crawls up the bed to kiss Adam, tasting of toothpaste and smelling of Adam's soap, and Adam settles his hands on Kris's ass to pull him in closer, covers tangling between them. 

"I used your toothbrush," Kris says, kissing Adam again and crowding in, knees either side of Adam's hips, hands on his chest.

"Good call," Adam agrees, and brings his knees up to rest his thighs against Kris's back, reveling in the warmth of his skin touching Kris's, uncontrollably happy with the contact and with Kris straddling his lap, Kris smiling at him like it's the best morning of his life.

Possibly it is the best morning of Adam's life. It was definitely an amazing night.

"So..." Kris slides his hands up to Adam's shoulders, leaning in against him with a soft sigh. "You made me a promise."

Adam grins, stroking Kris's back, bending to kiss Kris's forehead. More contact, more touch, he can't stop touching, can't keep his hands still, there's too much to touch now he can, now he's allowed. "I don't remember actually promising anything, baby."

"Implied," Kris protests, not moving.

"I asked you for words," Adam murmurs, brushing another kiss against Kris's hair. "And you didn't give them to me."

"I couldn't there." Kris's fingers curl, nails digging into Adam's shoulders. "You know I couldn't."

"You can now." Or, at least, there's no reason why Kris shouldn't. "If you can't say it, you shouldn't be doing it, baby."

"Shouldn't do everything you can say, though," Kris retorts.

Adam hums thoughtfully. "Oh, I'm not so sure, I think you should do a lot of things I say."

Kris bites Adam's shoulder. 

Adam yelps, laughing, and rolls to the side, taking Kris with him. "I still want to hear it."

"Hear what?" Kris wriggles, curling in close, one leg hooking over Adam's hips in a seriously distracting manner.

It would be so easy to give in and just roll Kris under him, but Adam's determined. "I want," he says softly, "to hear you tell me what you want."

Kris goes still, face against Adam's throat. "Do I have to look at you as well?"

"Not unless you want to," Adam assures him, hand soft and splayed on Kris's back. "You don't have to do anything, remember? Just what you want. Only if you really want me to be able to trust you know what you want, you have to tell me what that is sometimes so we can make sure you get it."

Even if it might be nice to be able to read Kris's mind. Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe sometimes.

Kris makes a quiet, considering noise, and nods, his breath warm against Adam's collarbone. "What if I don't know what I want?"

"Then you tell me what you want to try," Adam says without hesitation, because no one ever knows what they want all the time, and trying's good. "Or not. Kris, I'm not gonna judge you, no matter what you say here, okay? I mean, I might say no, but no judging is going to happen."

"You don’t know what I’m gonna say," Kris points out. "There’s a lot of stuff."

"There’s a lot of stuff you could say," Adam agrees. "Or do you mean there’s a lot of stuff you want to try? Because I am totally on board for that."

Kris bites him again, following up with a slow, warm lick that derails Adam’s ability to think for long seconds. "Both, I guess?"

"Narrow it down." Adam swallows, trying to smooth his voice out some. He’s trying to sound reassuring. Reliable. It’s not the easiest thing to do with the ache-itch of Kris’s bite still clear on his throat. "What do you want to try _now?_ "

"Now?" Kris’s fingers stroke over Adam’s shoulder. "I guess…" His ribs shift under Adam’s hand, and Adam can feel the deep breath even before it gusts warm over his skin. "Like now now or today now?"

"Either." Adam considers that he’s being extremely patient, or at least his brain is. His body is feeling a lot less patient, and there’s very little likelihood that Kris hasn’t picked up on that, since Adam’s cock is nestled up against Kris’s hip and very happy to be there. "C’mon, baby, just tell me something you want."

"You," Kris says, gratifyingly but unhelpfully. "I want, we said, you were gonna…" He hesitates, then pulls his head back enough for Adam to see his face, flushed and determined. "I want you to fuck me. Please."

"Yay," Adam cheers, caught between relief and happiness, and rolls over to press Kris back into the pillows for a kiss that goes on longer than he’d originally intended because Kris’s hands are in his hair and Kris’s mouth is open and Kris’s tongue, fuck, he loves Kris’s tongue. He loves the slick warmth of it against his lips, he loves the helpless wanting sound that Kris makes in the back of his throat and the way Kris arches up under him, pushing closer. It’s intoxicating, it’s addictive, it’s something that Adam’s finally allowed to indulge in, sucking lightly on Kris’s lower lip as he draws back. "Oh, baby, you’re gonna be saying that so much."

Kris blinks dark eyes back at him and licks his lips. "Please?"

"That, too," Adam says and nudges Kris’s head to the side to nip at his jawline, let his tongue rasp against morning stubble. "But mostly the other. I want to hear it, Kris, wanna hear you say how much you want me, want you begging for my cock inside you…"

Which is maybe a little further than they’ve talked about, but if Kris is looking for sweet and slow, he’s going to need to say something. Something other than squirming restlessly and wrapping his legs around Adam’s hips and grinding up hard enough to flash white bright across Adam’s vision. "God, Adam, yeah, please…"

Adam’s taking that as a yes, pressing another kiss to Kris’s throat, sliding down. "Tell me if I do anything you don’t like."

"Man, I’m not sure you _could_ ," Kris says, all rasp and drawl, and Adam has to kiss him again for that, taste the heat of Southern accent from the curl of his tongue. 

"I don’t plan on it." Still, the possibility’s there. Adam pushes back from Kris to give himself room to touch, because he can touch, because he wants to touch, hand flat and light to stroke over Kris’s chest, pausing to tease one of Kris’s nipples with his fingertips, only encouraged when Kris’s breath catches unsteadily. "Like that?"

"Yeah," Kris says, somewhere between a word and a sigh. "Adam, I want…can I touch you?"

"Always." Adam dips down to kiss Kris’s shoulder, turning his fingers to pinch lightly and shit, yes, that’s gorgeous, that little shiver and that little moan, the way Kris’s hips stutter half a movement. "Just don’t stop me touching you."

"I won’t." Kris laughs, breathy and wondering. "I don’t want to."

That’s pretty obvious, really, but it’s still better to hear it. "Good, baby," Adam murmurs, bends down and licks Kris’s nipple, catches it between his teeth to bite gently, then harder when Kris whines and clutches at him, fingers twisting in his hair. "Fuck, so good."

Kris hums and nods, freeing his hand from Adam’s hair to stroke distractedly at his shoulder instead. "That’s… Adam, I didn’t know…"

"Now you do," Adam says, with only a hint of smugness and more happiness that Kris does because Kris _should_ know, Kris should know everything that makes him react so beautifully. "More?"

"More," Kris says, staring down at him. "Please, yeah…"

"So polite," Adam approves, and shifts back onto his knees, curled over Kris to move over to his other nipple, fingers still teasing the first as he licks, kisses, bites and tugs, chasing the shocked, pleased sounds that Kris is offering up so readily. 

It’s amazing. Kris is amazing, responsive and hot and sexy, gorgeously open and uninhibited, arching into Adam’s touch when Adam strokes his side, only protesting when Adam moves far enough to be out of reach. 

"I want to touch you," Kris says, and Adam’s helpless to refuse, skimming back up Kris’s body to lie beside him, scratching Kris’s back when Kris immediately rolls into him with a sigh. 

"You are amazing," Adam tells him, because Kris needs to know that too. "And in case I didn’t say, I really, really want to fuck you." He strokes down, following the line of Kris’s spine to his ass and finally curving his hand around the firm swell of it, squeezing gently. So smooth, so warm, perfect fit for his hand. "I want to hold this while I’m inside you, I want to feel you move for me…"

"I want," Kris gasps, back arching as he pushes back into Adam’s hand, "you to keep talking to me."

So perfect. "I want you to keep telling me what you want," Adam responds, nuzzles Kris’s throat before kissing him again. "And I want lube now, fuck, why did I leave it so far away?"

"Didn’t," Kris says, blinking heavy eyes at him. "Had it last night."

"Last night is not now, Kristopher." And now is when Adam wants the lube, wherever it ended up, and it can’t have gone under the pillows because then he’d have felt it when they slept. It’s probably not even on the bed any more. 

"I know," Kris says, groping vaguely on the covers behind him. "It was…"

"Fuck." Adam presses his forehead to Kris’s shoulder for a moment before resigning himself to the reality of the fact that he’s going to have to let go. "Okay, just… just let go a moment, I’m going to find it, I want to see you open up for my fingers."

Kris grumbles, but Kris lets go, rolling over to sit up and curl around his knees while Adam gives up any pretense at dignity or being smooth to lean over the side of the bed and find out where the lube had ended up. Not far away, but far enough that he has to stretch to reach it under the bed. Far enough that he’s still bent over when he feels what has to be Kris’s hand on his ass, a slow, slightly hesitant touch.

"Holy shit," Adam says faintly, and tries to wriggle back onto the bed without letting go of the lube or turning over to block Kris’s access. "No, baby, don’t stop, I don’t want to stop you."

Kris looks slightly pink, but he doesn’t stop, movement a little more definite when he strokes again, warm slide that lets Adam feel the faint roughness of calluses on his fingertips. "I wanted to touch you," he says again.

"And you should," Adam says emphatically. "Any time you like. Anywhere you like, God, I love that, don’t stop."

It’s stupidly hot. First time touch is always hot, but this is more, somehow. He’s been waiting so long, kidding himself he hasn’t been waiting, that Kris’s hand on his ass is close to overwhelming, making him shiver when Kris’s fingers brush over his crease.

"We’re going to get to that, too," Adam says, swallows hard, and rolls back onto his side, curling into Kris. "Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow. Wait, shit, it’s Saturday tomorrow."

"Matinee day." Kris nods, grinning. "After?"

"Cabaret," Adam says, reaching back to trap Kris’s hand in case he was thinking of moving it away. "You’re coming, right?"

"Yeah, I’ll be there," Kris promises. "I want to see you sing."

"Instead of just hearing it?" Adam leans in to kiss Kris and lets go of his hand. "You don’t have to stop, I’m just…" He nods towards the lube in his other hand. "Still want this?"

Kris nods again, slower, less even, and bites his lip. "So much."

"Good." Adam kisses Kris’s bitten lip, licking before breaking away. "Keep telling me that."

"Probably will," Kris admits with a soft laugh.

He does. Kris with Adam’s fingers inside his ass is gorgeous, breathless and glassy-eyed with want and no shame about voicing that want, writhing and pushing down towards Adam’s hand, hot and tight and opening up easily enough that Adam doesn’t doubt for a heartbeat exactly how much Kris wants it. Wants Adam, fuck, sweat sheening his chest and cheekbones, salt-sharp when Adam licks it from his skin and twists his fingers deep enough to make Kris cry out for him. 

"Adam, fuck, Adam, please…" Broken and low and breathless, desperation lending the words music and melody. "Can you, I need, just, back some…"

Adam does love a man who knows his own body that well. Obligingly, he pulls his fingers back, bends them, and… oh, yeah, right there, rubbing gently. "There?"

Kris digs nails into Adam’s bicep and bites his shoulder, yell muffled into skin, and Adam nearly comes on the spot. 

"Oh my God," Adam says reverently, ignoring the heat throbbing in his shoulder. "Okay, coming back to that, too, I want to make you come just like this, on my fingers. Soon. I want to watch you."

"Not now," Kris says, voice thin and hissed, eyes closed and his head arched back. "Adam, please, fuck me, I want you to, now, I need you, please…"

"You’ve got me," Adam promises, trying to reach for a condom without taking his fingers out of Kris because he doesn’t want to leave Kris empty, Kris should never be empty, Kris should always be this beautiful and needy and filled. Something crashes to the floor and Adam doesn’t care because it’s not a condom, he’s got his hands on a condom, fingers slipping on the foil as he catches the corner in his teeth to tear it open. "You’ve got me, I’m right here, baby, fuck, you’re gorgeous, just like this, spread wide for me, Kris, show me…"

Kris whines and rolls onto his back, thighs splayed wide to give Adam a clear view of how tightly he’s stretched around Adam’s fingers, rim pink and smooth. Adam turns his hand, watches how Kris gives for him, and draws his fingers out with a ragged sigh, counterpoint to Kris's disgruntled moan.

"Soon," Adam soothes. A condom still needs two hands, especially when his hands aren't completely steady. Two hands, but not much time before he's surging forwards over Kris, head bent for a kiss, brief and then lingering, another, another, the taste of Kris's mouth still rich on Adam's tongue when he pushes in, a slow and steady slide into the mind-meltingly tight heat of Kris's body. "Oh, fuck, Kris, so good..."

Kris curls up towards him, wide-eyed and breathless, and loops his hands around Adam's neck to pull him down closer. Adam spares half a second to marvel at how flexible Kris is before completing the connection with another kiss, dropping down to rest his hands against the mattress. 

"Can you speak?" Because Adam's not at all sure he can guess either way, but he can ask, so he's going to ask.

Kris takes a moment to consider, then shakes his head slowly, grin wide and completely content.

Adam's maybe a little bit smug about that. "Do you want to?"

The answer to that's much quicker, more decisive. Another shake of Kris's head, then Kris stretches up for another kiss. Adam's more than happy to indulge him in that, along with a long slow pull back, laughing at the way Kris presses heels against his back.

"I'm not leaving," he says softly. "I'm not going anywhere, just stay with me, okay?"

Kris nods and Adam kisses him again, braces himself, and grasps desperately for self-control when all he wants is to let it fly and fuck Kris until they're both breathless and shaking. He's seen Kris, though, the way Kris teases himself, and maybe Adam can't last as long as one of Kris's toys but he can definitely draw things out, slow and shallow, hips rolling a steady rhythm keeping time with his breath, with his heartbeat, heat and want curling and coiling just as slow and just as insistent.

It's timeless. It's forever and eternal and the blink of an eye, the beat of a heart, no time and all time and not enough time before he can feel Kris rocking up to meet him, moving with him and then pushing, more and deeper and faster, better as need rises and demands. "Kris," Adam warns, sees Kris's lips shape his name, soundless and bitten red. "God, you're incredible."

Kris huffs something that might be a sigh, might be a laugh, and digs his fingers into Adam's shoulders, face pressed against his throat, sweatslick and hot. Adam bends his head, mouths at Kris's hair, gives in just enough to snap his hips and fuck harder, hear the way Kris gasps and moans for him, feels him shudder. 

"Touch yourself for me," Adam whispers, lips against Kris's ear. "Do it, baby, show me, I want to feel you."

"Can't," Kris says, hoarse and barely loud enough to hear. "Adam..."

"Then tell me what you want." Adam flicks his tongue against Kris's earlobe, holding perfectly still, ache beginning to burn through his hips. "Breathe, Kris. Deep breath and talk to me."

"I hate you," Kris says perfectly clearly, closes his eyes, and obediently takes a deep breath. 

"You love me," Adam counters, and shit, he'd thought he was still before but now he can't move, arms locked, shoulders tense, barely breathing, heartbeat thudding loud in his head because he hadn't meant to say that, had barely dared to even think it. Not in those words.

In contrast, Kris lets out a soft sigh and relaxes, his mouth soft, his eyes heavy when he opens them to look at Adam with a smile. "Yeah, I do."

"Oh my God, _Kris_ ," Adam says, shocked, shudders and loses the battle for control, arching down over Kris as giddy heat takes over and he comes, Kris's body wrapped around him and Kris's contented face held in his mind.

It takes a few seconds before he can catch his breath enough to look up at Kris, body still thrumming, still deep inside Kris even though he's going to have to do something about that in the very near future. "Okay, so usually I have better control than that."

"Usually might just kill me," Kris says, grins, and slides his fingers into Adam's hair. "Unusually..."

"Unusually..." Adam bends his head for a kiss. "Unusually, tell me what you want."

Kris laughs, rough and breathy, and curls his hand around the back of Adam's neck, warm and strong, steady against the frantic beat of Adam's heart still trying to come down. "Doesn't sound that unusual to me."

"Kris," Adam says, with as much patience as he can manage. "If you really want to wait, or if you don't want to come..."

"I want," Kris interrupts hastily. "No, I want, just, you said..."

Adam hums thoughtfully, takes a deeper breath, and reaches down to keep the condom safe as he pulls out, much to Kris's audible displeasure. "Safety, baby," he says softly, kisses Kris again, then takes longer than he'd like to dispose of it before being able to return all of his attention to Kris and all the possible options open to them. "Can you tell me how you want to come?"

"Soon," Kris says frankly. "I want it to be you, not... watching."

"I wasn't planning on closing my eyes," Adam admits, and stretches out with a sigh, tracing a slow spiral on Kris's chest with one fingertip. "Okay, no, I get you. You want my mouth again?"

Kris shakes his head, wriggling a little. "Not right now. I want... What you said, before, about your fingers?"

Adam remembers. Adam remembers very distinctly. "You want to come on my fingers?"

Color blooms fresh on Kris's cheeks. "Yeah. On... with them inside me."

"Oh, baby, we can totally do that." Easily, without moving far, without even stopping for more lube because Adam knows exactly how generous he was with it before, and he can still feel that, how easily his finger slips back into Kris. Two fingers, feeling how much Kris is still stretched open from his cock, and that's just beautiful.

Kris groans, low and pleased, and arches his back in a slow stretch before relaxing against Adam with a sigh. "Feels good."

"It gets better," Adam says, kisses Kris, and twists his wrist some, just enough to find the angle he had before. "Stay with me, Kris. Are you gonna come for me? Just from this, just from my fingers in your ass? Or do you need more?"

"Just... Just that," Kris says unevenly. "I mean, I don't, I want... this. Please."

"You've got this," Adam murmurs, presses deeper, and rubs gently, insistently until Kris twists and arches and gasps for him, hand tight on Adam's bicep, breathless and almost silent as he comes. "That's it, fuck, Kris, that's perfect, you're amazing, just... God, look at you, that's..."

Indescribable with anything except a kiss, one that Kris meets and matches, shudders, wraps closer to Adam. "That's... God, enough, Adam, please."

Adam stops, drawing his hand back as smoothly as he can, stroking Kris's back instead. "You're amazing," he repeats quietly. 

Kris kisses his shoulder, settling in more solidly, warm and relaxed and smelling of sex. Smelling of Adam. "You're okay, too, I guess."

Laughing, Adam kisses Kris's hair and reaches for the covers, pulling them up and over them as far as possible without either of them having to move. "I think my ego can survive that. Can you manage a shower, maybe?"

"Later," Kris says firmly, eyes determinedly closed. "Love you, sleep now."

Adam tightens his hold on Kris, closing his own eyes and letting the words sink in, feeling them slot into place. "Love you, too."

Sleep now, shower later. Kris now and Kris later. It all sounds pretty good to Adam.

~~

Possibly Fiyero’s Friday night performance has a little more exuberance than usual.


	7. Chapter 7

By the end of Saturday night’s performance, Adam’s close to exhausted. Happy, relaxed, aching in more than a few unusual places, and tired enough that it takes him a few seconds to respond to the knock on his dressing room door. "Who is it?"

"Who did you give tickets to?" The door cracks open, and Alisan’s grinning face appears around it. "Look at you, superstar."

Adam laughs, swivels around in his (Toby’s) chair, and holds his arms out to her in invitation. "I’m all gross from the stage."

Alisan makes a dismissive noise and hugs him anyway. "Please, I’ve seen you way worse. I’ve been clubbing with you."

"And usually bailed on me midway through," Adam says pointedly, kisses her cheek, and lets her go. "Ready for the cabaret?"

"Precisely why I’m here, babe." Alisan swings a bag down from her shoulders and crouches down to pull it open. "Get in that shower. Where’s your boy?"

"Meeting us in the bar." Adam wipes one final cotton ball over his face and stands up. "Did you bring the silver ones?"

Alisan nods. "And the blue and black ones. Brad insisted."

"Brad does not get to vet my wardrobe choices any more," Adam says firmly, ducking around the corner into the shower. "Brad’s vote is not valid."

"It could have been worse," Alisan called. "I could have listened to Cassidy."

It’s true, that would definitely have been worse. There’s nothing wrong with leather for performing, but Cassidy’s performance venues usually involve either being shirtless, the leather coming off not long after it goes on, or much better air conditioning than a theater bar. Adam has stopped taking Cassidy’s advice on cabaret costume. "Love you," he calls back, then focuses on getting clean as quickly as possible to give himself maximum styling time.

~~

The bar’s way more crowded than it usually is for the semi-regular cast cabaret nights. Adam credits that to more of the orchestra staying on for it, and it’s awesome, but it means it takes him longer to search through the black-clad figures to find his musician, hair spiked and apparently under verbal assault a la Brad.

Adam ignores Brad, ignores Cassidy’s amused audience, ignores Cale headed towards the table with his hands full of drinks, and leans over the back of the booth instead, sliding his hands down over Kris’s shoulders. "Hi."

Kris arches his head back, reaches up, and wraps his hands around Adam’s arms to pull himself up for a kiss and oh, yeah, this is exactly what Adam’s been craving since kissing Kris goodbye before the evening performance. It’s a little more careful than usual, because no long-lasting lipstick is ever as enduring as it claims to be, but it’s warm and perfect, lingering. 

"Hi," Kris says eventually, eyes wide and dark from the dim room.

Adam’s not sure if Brad or Alisan’s leading the round of applause, but he recognizes Brad’s piercing wolf-whistle, ignoring it to kiss Kris one more time. "Alisan wants us to perform together."

Kris goes silent for a moment, worrying his lower lip with his teeth. "We haven’t rehearsed."

"We’re professionals," Adam points out. "Also there might be a conspiracy involved."

Kris blinks, then lets go of Adam to catch the guitar case being dumped unceremoniously in his lap.

"Sorry, bro," Cale says, patently insincere.

"I hate you," Kris says faintly. 

"Which one of us?" Adam kisses Kris’s cheek, moving around the booth and glaring pointedly at Brad until he slides to the side to let Adam in next to Kris.

"All of you." Kris manages to slide his guitar down between his knees. "Perform what?"

Cale grins. "Maybe I gave him a copy of your songs."

Alisan whoops and holds her hand up. Cale high fives her. 

"They’re buying the drinks all night," Adam tells Kris, and holds his arm out for Kris to curl under. "No offense, baby, but there’s nothing really harmonically complex in there. You name it, we can do it. Either yours or anything you guys have in your set. Though you really should know I’m not so much a Beatles kind of girl."

"Oh, man, then we’re done." Kris shakes his head, grin turning impish. "Can’t run down the Beatles, dude."

"I totally respect their songwriting innovation," Adam says firmly. "I just can’t sing most of it."

"And you should show these guys what you can do," Cale adds. "C’mon, everyone’s here to have a good time. Easiest crowd you’re ever gonna play."

Kris wrinkles his nose. "What if I say no?"

"Then Cassidy plays for me." Adam lifts his hand, stroking the back of his fingers over Kris’s cheek. "You can always say no, baby."

"Yeah, I know." Kris turns his head into Adam’s touch, smile softening. "I guess that’s why I don’t want to."

"So?" Alisan asks hopefully.

Kris doesn’t look away from Adam’s face. "Alright with me?"

Somewhere outside Adam’s focus, Cale laughs. "Is that agreement or the song?"

"The song," Adam says, and kisses Kris.

It’s not Adam’s most polished performance ever. Cale and Kris know the song, Adam’s still learning it, lyrics pulled up in an email on his phone, but his voice blends with Kris’s even better than he’d hoped, Kris’s falsetto doesn’t actually knock Adam to his knees, and they all finish together, Adam desperately holding Kris’s eyes to count out the last few repeats before the guitars fall silent and Adam breaks into laughter. Relief and happiness and love, warmth filling his chest, and when he holds his hand out to Kris, Kris hands his guitar off to Cale and goes easily into Adam’s arms.

When Adam bends his head for a kiss, Kris stretches up to meet him and the applause gets louder.

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks are owed for this. Thanks to sorchasilver, because it started out as a birthday present for her nearly two years ago. Thanks to lokte who read this at Connotations and reassured me that it was worth continuing. Thanks to akavertigo who saw the beginnings of this while I was still wrestling with the bloody werewolves (and yes, Lena-my-love, I promise that editing those is coming up next). Thanks to lvs2read, my long suffering and ever-reliable beta, and again to lokte who gave me so many helpful notes as a first reader - I'm sorry I didn't have time to incorporate more of them! Thanks to the ladies of the Kradam mailing list, invaluable cheerleaders and all-round brilliant people. Thanks to anyone who's still reading after over 40k words, well done to you!
> 
> When I signed up for this for Kradam Big Bang 2013, I was worried about meeting the word limit. When I submitted the rough draft, it was 18k and I thought it was 80% done. It really has taken a village. You're all wonderful.
> 
> Finally, huge thanks to Ibrahil (evian_fork) for their stunning artwork - it makes this story so much better.


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